The CBI on Wednesday arrested former Union communications minister A. Raja and former telecom secretary Siddartha Behura on charges of allegedly violating established guidelines and procedures in the allotment of Unified Access Services (UAS) licences in 2007-08, thus and causing a `1.76 lakh crore loss to the national exchequer. The agency also arrested Mr Raja’s private secretary R.K. Chandolia, a 1984 batch Indian Economic Service officer, in connection with its probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
Mr Raja’s arrest comes almost two months after he was forced to resign from the Union Cabinet following a parliamentary storm over his continuance in office and with the Supreme Court breathing down the government’s neck over scam investigations. He resigned after embarrassing details of the comptroller and auditor-general’s report of the presumptive `1.76 lakh crore loss to the exchequer became public.
The CBI made the three arrests while these individuals were being questioned. The three had been called to the CBI’s headquarters here at 10 am on Wednesday. A senior agency official told reporters the arrests were made “on the basis of facts disclosed so far in the investigation regarding their role in the allocation of the letter of intent and resultant UAS licences and spectrum to certain companies ahead of others, in violation of established guidelines and procedures.” This newspaper had reported in Wednesday morning’s edition that Mr Raja’s arrest by the CBI was imminent.
All three were arrested under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, besides being booked under different sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The CBI had registered a case in October 2009 under Section 120-B IPC against unknown officials of the department of telecommunications (DoT) and unknown private individuals, companies and others under different sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act over alleged irregularities in the allotment of 2G spectrum licences.
Sources said the agency decided to arrest Mr Raja and his close aides after they failed to give satisfactory replies to the questions put by investigating officials. On Wednesday, the former minister kept telling interrogators he had not done anything wrong while allotting the 2G licences, the sources said. Mr Raja had always claimed that no laws were violated in the allotment of 2G spectrum licences.
“The agency called Mr Raja for a fourth round of questioning on Wednesday. He was earlier questioned on December 24 and 25 last year and on January 31. He also failed to give a satisfactory reply (to questions) about his conversations with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and the reasons for advancing the cutoff date for the allocation of spectrum,” the sources said.
As news about the arrest of Mr Behura and Mr Chandolia broke, their family members arrived at the CBI headquarters with anxious queries. Some of them could be seen with tears in their eyes.
The sources added: “During questioning, Raja was also confronted with certain specific questions related to alleged favours given to some private telecom companies, who were in the race for 2G allotment. Raja was also asked about his association with Sadiq Basha, who runs Green House Promoters.” He did not give any satisfactory replies to any of these queries, they said.
The CBI had recently conducted searches at Mr Raja’s residences in New Delhi and at Perambalur in Tamil Nadu, and at the houses of a number of his associates and relatives.