The former Union Minister, Arun Shourie, has opposed any probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the 2G spectrum scam, stating that it would become an excuse for the government to slow down the prosecution process.
Mr. Shourie said at a meeting organised by an NGO, Manthan, here on Thursday that a swift and speedy prosecution was required in the case, but the JPC would take two years to complete the probe as was illustrated in going into the scams involving Bofors, Ketan Parekh, Harshad Mehta and insecticides in Coca-Cola. Moreover, the JPC will only recommend investigation and prosecution at the end, which was anyway going on.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said he had no knowledge of the deals of his former secretary, Pradip Baijal, with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia. “Mr. Baijal was an absolutely upright officer when he worked with me in the Ministry of Disinvestment,” he said in response to a question from the audience during an interactive session.
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He said the scam exposed the fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had lost control over the government and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, over her party. Above all, it showed that the country lost its sense of priority. Dr. Manmohan Singh could not absolve himself of the responsibility as the Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had made presentations to him and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee much earlier. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Parliament also petitioned the Prime Minister about what was going wrong.
The former Telecom Minister, A. Raja, violated the TRAI recommendations in allotment of spectrum. The Prime Minister remained a silent spectator as telecom operators made deals with the Minister. Even the bureaucrats in the Ministry let down the country, Mr. Shourie added.