CBI on Thursday defended Home Minister P. Chidamabaram in the Supreme Court in the 2G scam by blaming the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) for ‘jumping the gun’ in spectrum allocation.
‘The DoT jumped the gun,’ senior advocate K. K. Venugopal, appearing for CBI, submitted before a bench of justices G. S. Singhvi and A. K. Ganguly, while explaining how DoT did not want to go before the Telecom Commission on the issue of fixation of price for the spectrum.
He said Chidamabaram, who was then the Finance Minister, cannot be held responsible for the decision not to auction the radio waves as the Ministry of Finance was represented on the issue by the Finance Secretary during its meeting with the Ministry of Telecom then headed by A Raja.
While the meeting of the Telecom Commission was postponed from January 9 to January 15 in 2008, the DoT on January 10, 2008 issued 122 LoIs (Letter of Intents).
"DoT did not want the Commission to go into it. The base price of 2001 (for the spectrum), which was extended in 2003 continued. DoT jumped the gun," the senior advocate said.
He said Chidamabaram could not have taken the decision himself on the spectrum issue without consulting his subordinate officials, including the then Finance Secretary V Subba Rao, now the Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).