CBI Director A.P. Singh told the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday that it would be ‘incorrect' to say there were no losses to the exchequer in the allotment of 2G licences.
Deposing before the PAC, Mr. Singh said that since his agency primarily focussed on the criminal aspects of the 2G scam case, it would be difficult for him at this juncture to quantify the losses.
“The most important thing he [the CBI chief] said was that as far as he has looked into the matter, it is wrong to say that zero losses occurred, but because he is primarily involved in criminal investigations, he can't give an exact figure for the losses,” PAC Chairman and senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi told journalists here.
The remark made by the CBI chief at the PAC meeting contradicts the claim made by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal that the revenue losses due to the allotment of telecom licences were ‘nil.'
The Minister had dubbed “utterly erroneous and without any basis” the estimated loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore arrived at by the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) on account of 2G spectrum allocation.
