Former communications minister A. Raja, who is an accused in the 2G spectrum scam case, is most likely to file a petition challenging the Supreme Court order which made several critical observations over his role in the case while cancelling 122 telecom licences.
Raja, who completed one year of incarceration on February 2, hasn’t so far filed any petition, not even for bail.
According to sources, Raja will file the petition claiming that he would be denied a fair trail as a consequence of the SC order of February 2.
The sources said discussions are going on over how and when the petition will be filed.
The SC had strongly indicted Raja over the manner in which he dealt with the issue of licences and ordered that the licences in 22 circles be sold by auction for which the Trai will make fresh recommendations. The SC order had observed, “The exercise undertaken by the officials of DoT under the leadership of then minister IT, that is A. Raja, was arbitrarily and contrary to public interest apart from being in violation of doctrine of equality granted licences to these companies.”
“He (Raja) simultaneously introduced cut off date as 25.9.2007 for consideration of the applications received for grant of licence despite the fact that only one day prior to this, press release was issued by the DoT fixing 1.10.2007 as the last date for receipt of the applications. This arbitrary action of the minister of C&IT though appears to be innocuous was actually intended to benefit some of the real estate companies who did not have any experience in dealing with telecom services and who had made applications only on 24.9.2007, i.e. one day before the cut off date fixed by the Minister of C&IT on his own,” the order had said.