NEW DELHI: Former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, accused in the 2G spectrum case, on Wednesday charged the government with being responsible for the “mess”, a day after former telecom minister A Raja dragged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram into the imbroglio for the second time.
“The entire government is responsible for the mess. My client raised the objection publicly and the government didn’t listen to him. He was bound to follow policies made by the government, he did his work as a public servant to implement policies of the government. He didn’t do anything wrong,” Behura’s counsel Aman Lekhi told CBI special judge OP Saini.
Behura began his arguments in the Central Bureau of Investigatin (CBI) special court by opposing the framing of charges against him in the 2G spectrum case.
His counsel said: “Behura had no choice but to implement policy. Let down by the government where will he go?”
Behura was arrested Feb 2 for alleged involvement in the 2G scam. In the chargesheet filed April 2, he is accused of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and criminal misconduct by a public servant.
The former Telecom Secretary admitted that he overruled directives of then Prime Minister I K Gujral asking TRAI to undertake a study on the demands of telecom operators and instead gave it to outside agencies to get a speedier report.
A V Gokak, Telecom Secretary between 1996 and 1998, told the Joint Parliamentary Committee that since the telecom industry was “settling down” and was not in the best of financial health, he decided to ask ICICI Bank and Bureau of Industrial Cost and Pricing (BICP) to carry out the study and bring out a report at the earliest.
He said as compared to TRAI, the two agencies in his opinion could deliver the report faster. Gokak also defended the decision of Department of Telecom of not disqualifying the licences of operators who had not opened an escrow account as per the licence agreement, saying the industry was facing difficulties in its nascent years.
Therefore, the government wanted to allow it to settle down. Addressing a press conference after the JPC meeting, committee chairman P C Chacko said the CAG report of 2000 has recorded the fact that the DoT did not ensure opening of escrow accounts which was a pre-condition for granting of licences.
The CAG report of 1998 mentions the fact that as escrow accounts were not opened, the DoT did not recover the outstanding licence fee of Rs 685 crore from licencees, besides an interest of Rs 50.76 crore and liquidated damages of Rs 36 crore(Agencies)
