New Delhi: Former Telecom Minister A Raja defended himself in 2G spectrum allocation scam by saying he had continued the policy inherited from NDA rpt NDA government and his predecessors were backed by the union cabinet and his effort was to make cellular phone services affordable to the man on the street.
The DMK leader said he was under no obligation to follow the policy of auction for allocation of 2G licences and adopted the policy "which was decided by the union cabinet in 2003" and followed by Arun Shourie of NDA government and his party colleague Dayanidhi Maran who was his immediate predecessor.
"As Telecom Minster, Arun Shourie distributed 26 licences while Dayanidhi Maran distributed 25 and I distributed 122 licences. Numbers make no difference.
However, it is to be noted that none of them auctioned the spectrum. Let them deny that they have not done what I did," Raja said.
"I have only implemented what I have inherited," his counsel and senior advocate Sushil Kumar submitted before Special CBI judge O P Saini.
"To give a licence without auction was my obligation. Look at the enormity of injustice to me. I am being prosecuted for doing my duty," Raja said, adding "the award of licences in November 2003, January 2004, December 2006, March 2007 (under Maran) and under me in January 2008 were all policy decisions.
"The entire spectrum allocation from 2002 was below the market price and the difference was to be recovered from the subscribers," Raja said.
"Their case is not that I or we took something out of the government treasury. They are fighting a case on possible revenue which could have accrued. It is like a barren woman saying if she had had kids, they would have got married."
Raja defended his policies saying he looked at the need to provide telecom services to the man on the street and the low entry fee contributed to this phenomenon and should be seen in the context of the benefit the society has reaped.
"It was my obligation to social justice that every man on the street should have a mobile phone. I am a servant of my people and by calling new and existing service providers to apply, I increased the competition due to which the call rates went down from Rs 3 to Re 1, so much so that even a rickshaw walah or a maid servant can be seen using it."
Raja also denied the charge of conspiracy as he said Swan Telecom applied for licence in March 2007 while I became Telecom Minister in May that year. Five months before becoming the minister, I had not even dreamt of becoming a minister and then CBI says I conspired with Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa."
"Sanjay Chandra of Unitech applied in September. So, how can Swan and Unitech be co-conspirators? If there is any common conspirator that can only be me and if I am innocent then everybody in this room is innocent," said Raja.
Concluding his argument for the day, Raja's counsel said the court should not have taken cognisance of the charge sheet.
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