The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Wednesday said that it would provide the correspondence between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Telecommunications Minister, A. Raja, on the implementation of the telecom policy and 2G spectrum pricing to an applicant under the Right to Information Act (RTI).
A statement by the PMO said that the correspondence would be made available after the Central Information Commission (CIC) reworded the specific information sought by the petitioner. On Tuesday, the CIC had said that it had altered the queries after consultations with the applicant and directed the PMO to release the correspondence between the Prime Minister and Mr. Raja on changes in the first-come, first-served policy on allotment of 2G spectrum.
The RTI applicant had approached the PMO seeking to know why Mr. Raja continued to be part of the Cabinet after serious allegations of corruption were levelled against him.
‘No record of charges’
The PMO had replied saying it did not have any record relating to allegations of corruption against Mr. Raja, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with alleged graft in the award of telecom spectrum during his tenure.
“The appellant has framed his queries in Hindi and his queries are a mix of allegations and his desire for what the nation should be. The Commission has reframed his queries and after discussions with the appellant the reframed query in his application is being given to the PMO,” Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said in his directive to the PMO.
Mr. Gandhi directed the PMO to provide “attested copies of records regarding charges of corruption against A. Raja and copies of file notings or correspondence in this regard” before July 10.
Reports denied
The PMO, in its statement, said, “Such [media] reports give rise to an impression that these letters have not been disclosed by Prime Minister's Office in response to Right to Information applications.
“However, Prime Minister's Office has always provided the information sought, in response to Right to Information applications. Applicants, who have earlier sought copies of correspondence between Shri Raja and the Prime Minister, have already in the past been provided these copies by PMO. In the case reported upon in the media, the actual request made was not for these letters. As the Commission, after consulting the applicant, has reframed the request as requiring disclosure of the aforementioned correspondence, copies of the same would be made available to the applicant in this case as well.”
