Continuing with its probing queries about the alleged brazen acts of former communications minister A. Raja in the allocation of 2G spectrum licences, the Supreme Court on Thursday took a serious view of his showing “disrespect” even to the Prime Minister who had advised him to be “fair and transparent” in deciding the issue.
Rejecting the stand of Mr Raja’s counsel T.R. Andhyarujinathat that the minister had never intended to show any “disrespect” to Dr Manmohan Singh as he held the PM in high regard, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly indicated they were not impressed and had serious reservations on the kind of language used by Mr Raja in his reply to the PM’s letter.
The court held that the language of Mr Raja’s letter was “intemperate”, particularly given that he was responding to the executive head of the government.
Citing Mr Raja’s November 2, 2007 letter, the bench noted that the former minister stated that auctioning of 2G spectrum would be “unfair, discriminatory, capricious and arbitrary” as it would deny a level playing field to companies starting telecom business for the first time.
The court had serious objection to the use of words like “unfair, discriminatory, capricious and arbitrary” when responding to the suggestions made by the Prime Minister. “Look at the gloss of the minister... see his command over the language,” the bench sarcastically remarked, explaining that the standard practice in official communications, particularly while writing to a superior authority, was to ensure that the language was “temperate” and polite.
Mr Raja’s counsel, however, maintained that the former minister “may be guilty of gloss, but he is not guilty of disrespect to the PM.” The PM did not have time to apply his mind to such technical issues and it was the duty of Mr Raja to explain the matter to him, he claimed.
The court also pointed out that Mr Raja’s response to the law ministry’s advice that the 2G issue should be referred to the Group of Ministers for detailed discussion, particularly on the issue of price, also amounted to “blunt” rejection of the advice.
In the opinion of the court, the minister should have taken some time to ponder on the matter when there was advice coming from the Prime Minister as well as the finance and law ministries, but he showed utmost alacrity in rejecting these and going ahead with his plan.
He “bluntly” rejected as “out-of-context” the law ministry’s advice and kept the finance ministry in the dark on allocation of 2G spectrum licences in January 2008 at 2001 prices, the court observed.
Instead of going ahead with his plan, the former minister should have referred the matter back to the law ministry when it suggested that a GoM should look into the price issue. Further clarification should have been sought from the law ministry on why it should go to a GoM if necessary, but the minister wrote directly to the PM that the law ministry’s advice was “out-of-context”, it said.
Mr Raja had rejected the law ministry’s advice on the ground that his ministry had sought legal opinion only on the procedures to be followed and not on the telecom policy already approved by the Cabinet.
The court also wanted to know why finance ministry officials were kept out of a crucial meeting of the Telecom Commission in January 2008 despite the ministry having raised serious objections on the financial aspects of spectrum allocation.