The political storm on the finance ministry’s note to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the 2G price issue might have subsided with patch-up work at the highest level in the Congress but the problem for the government on the legal
front is far from over, with the Supreme Court to resume hearing from where it left off last week with a pointed query on the December 17, 2008 note of director infrastructure recommending revision of spectrum price.
A bench of Justices Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, just before adjournment last week, had put a specific question to CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal regarding the December 17 note of director, infrastructure, (DI) the finance ministry prepared in response to a letter from DoT.
The top court had focused on DI’s note marked to joint secretary/additional secretary, economic affairs (EA), finance ministry as the March 25 note the infrastructure and investment division deputy director P.G.S. Rao to Vini Mahajan in PMO — which brought Mr Pranab Mukherjee and Mr Chidambaram face to face on spectrum price issue — stated “the December 17, 2008 does not seem to have been put up to the next level of consideration”.
In view of this the bench had specifically asked CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal to read the entire note carefully.
Mr Rao’s note to Mahajan said “records also indicate that the then additional secretary, EA put up on January 1, 2008 in a separate file, a comprehensive concept paper on the extent of telecom sector policy.
“The subject header of the said note mentioned the reference of department of economic affairs letter of November 22, 2007 and DoT reply of November 29, 2007”.
“The note (December 17, 2008) recommended both revision of the entry fee fixed in 2003 as well as adoption of an auction methodology for determination of the spectrum usage charges.
The position paper was prefaced with a note of the then addition secretary of January 9, 2008.