While widening the investigation on the spectrum issue, the Supreme Court in its order has given enough indications of how former communications minister A. Raja had virtually bulldozed awarding of the 2G licences by showing great alacrity in processing the matter since he took over the ministry in May 2007.
The Supreme Court also recorded in detail how some companies benefited due to the quick disposal of letters of intent (LIOs) by Mr Raja on January 10, 2008 — within 45 minutes — at Sanchar Bhavan had shown same the alacrity in selling the licences at three to four time higher price in open market to other entities.
In his brazen approach, the former minister had overlooked the advice coming from every quarters — telecom regulatory authority, telecom commission, finance secretary and law minister — and even the Prime Minister to whom he dispatched two letters in quick succession in a single day, rejecting his advice.
A bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly in the order indicated how Mr Raja on November 2, 2007 dispatched a DO letter to the Prime Minister sating that at the suggestion of the law ministry was “totally out of context” and asserted that department of telecom had already decided to continue with the first come first serve policy for processing the applications received up to September 25, 2007, the new cut-of date issued substituting October 1, 2007 deadline.
In response to the Prime Minister’s letter asking the minister to take “cautious” approach on the issue, “it appears that even before the DO letter sent by respondent No-5 (Raja) was received in his (PM’s) office, the Prime Minister sent a letter to him drawing his attention to the issues raised by telecom sector companies and others on the processing of a large number of applications in the backdrop inadequate spectrums (available with DoT).”
“The Prime Minister’s letter was accompanied by a note in which five issues were identified. On the same day Respondent No-5 (Raja) sent another letter to the PM stating that it will be unfair, discriminatory, arbitrary and capricious to auction the spectrum to new applicants as it will not give the level playing field,” the apex court recorded.
All the applicants, eligible or not, collected their LOIs and acceptance order in respect of 120 applications on January 10, 2008 within a 45 minutes, the top court said expressing surprise how compliance terms and conditions were fulfilled by 78 of them on same day.
“Soon after obtaining the licences, Swan Telecom which had paid licence fee of `1,537 crores only off loaded its 45 per cent stake to Etisalat for `4,500 crores, and Unitech, which obtained licence for `1,651 crores off loaded 60 per cent of its stake to Telenor for `6,120 crores,” the top court said indicating how the licences were sold in the market for a price three to four time higher than awarded by DoT at 2001 rates.