‘Ministers should have recused themselves’

Aam Aadmi Party leader Prashant Bhushan on Thursday said Union Telecommunications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the former Union Information and Broadcasting Minister (Independent charge) Manish Tewari, in their roles as members of Parliament, had spoken on issues relating to RIL, something they should have “recused themselves from”.

“Both had received money either directly from RIL (Mr. Tiwari) or from their Group company Fine Tech Corporation Limited (Mr. Prasad) as retainership. Both are clear cases of conflict of interest and gross impropriety,” he alleged.

The party also shared payment invoices amounting to Rs. 84 lakh received by Mr. Prasad from the company between April 2013 and March 2014.

These invoices say that Mr. Prasad was paid the money for “advising the company on various issues from legal point of view. Recommendation regarding decision or course of conduct. Vetting of various contracts on legal aspects.”

It was just two months after the last payment thus made that Mr. Prasad assumed charge of Telecommunication as well as Law ministries.

Mr. Bhushan had also filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the government’s decision to allow Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) to offer voice services on its 4G spectrum. The apex court had subsequently issued notices to both Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and RJIL.

“After the Supreme Court notice to the DoT on my case and other complaints filed to DoT/PM & CVC by other persons - DoT officials prepared a notice to Reliance Jio asking for reasons on why its contract should not be cancelled ?,” said Mr. Bhushan.

He alleged: “Mr. Prasad has been sitting on this notice for the past three months and not allowing DoT’s Access Service Division to issue notice to Reliance”

The AAP leader questioned the stance adopted by the DoT (under Mr. Prasad) vis-a-vis the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG’s) observation that RIL and Infotel Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd which it subsequently acquired, were shown undue favours, resulting in a loss of more than Rs.20,000 crore to the government.

In Mr, Tewari's case, AAP alleged that he was in a retainership agreement with the RIL even during his tenure as a Union Minister.

“When his contract for retainership expired on June 30, 2012, Manish Tewari wrote a letter to Parimal Nathwani (RS member and senior functionary in Reliance) to get his contract extended till June 30, 2015. The contract got extended till June 30, 2014,” said Mr. Bhushan.