Raja wants to grill CAG chief in court

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Former Telecom Minister A. Raja, accused in the 2G spectrum scam, on Saturday said he would seek the permission of the court to grill Vinod Rai, the head of CAG, which pegged at Rs 1.76 lakh crore as the presumptive loss due to the controversial spectrum allocation.

"CAG report is meant for Parliament. For the first time in Indian judiciary, the CAG report is being treated as the basis for a criminal investigation by the Supreme Court," said Raja, out on bail after being in jail for 15 months.

"I will seek permission in court to question the CAG myself and I hope the court will permit", he said in an interview to a Tamil TV channel.

Raja, who had to quit in the wake of the scam, said the telecom scam was a 'sham', the channel said in a release. Raja alleged the case was fabricated against him because he stood in the way of cartels in the telecom industry.

Calling himself a victim, Raja said, "I had stood in the way of this cartel and that is probably why I am in trouble now. I brought in new players to create a competitive atmosphere which resulted in increasing tele-density and bringing down call charges from Rupee one per minute to 30 paise per minute."