As the UPA government seems wary about taking any immediate action against beleaguered communications minister A. Raja, under fire over the 2G spectrum auction controversy, the department of telecom filed an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday to defend every action taken by its minister in the process of allocating unified access service licences for 2G spectrum in 2007.
Denying a plethora of serious allegations levelled against Mr Raja in two PILs before the Supreme Court, the DoT said neither the PMO nor the finance minister had been kept in dark, nor had the advice of the law ministry been ignored.
“Not only was there no difference of opinion with the Prime Minister, his office was also fully kept informed of all decisions,” the affidavit said, adding: “The ministry of law and justice has not given any advice regarding the policy in force on grant of UAS licences or on the first-come-first-served issue.”
The DoT said the finance secretary on November 27, 2007 “had raised certain queries regarding the entry fee. This was replied to the secretary (telecom) on November 29. Thereafter, no further reference or communication was received and there was no difference of opinion between the two ministries,” said the affidavit, filed by DoT’s assistant director-general S.R. Meena.
On the allegation that Mr Raja had caused huge losses to the exchequer by allocating UAS licences for 2G spectrum at 2001 prices in 2007, the affidavit claimed that the whole calculation about alleged losses of `1.4 lakh crore or `70,000 crore was just speculation.
These projected losses were “unrealistic calculations” as the main emphasis of the policy devised by the government, after due consultation with TRAI, was on expanding teledensity in rural areas and widening it further in urban areas, the affidavit said.
DoT further claimed that there could not be any comparison between the price of 2G spectrum and 3G spectrum to calculate revenue losses as the real benefit in terms of revenue would be felt over years, with the increase in teledensity and allocation of 2G spectrum being a great success in this regard.
After the sale of UAS licences of 2G spectrum in 2007, the total number of phone users in the country had increased drastically to 723 million people, far higher than the 600 million projected by the end of 2012.
Teledensity in rural areas rose from six per cent in 2007 to 28.46 per cent by September 2010: the country’s overall teledensity went up to 69.99 per cent in this period.
The DoT even questioned the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter, saying “the issue of allotment and pricing of spectrum falls squarely in the domain of executive policymaking, and in which the scope for judicial review is highly restricted.”
The DoT thus claimed that “there is no case made out by the petitioners for monitoring the investigation by the CBI and the petitions should be dismissed.”