2G: Gopalan appears before Parliamentary panel again

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) members in the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the 2G telecom scam found that certain facts were “left out” from the crucial inter-ministerial note prepared by finance ministry on the spectrum allocation scam last year. But members of the opposition parties suspected this was just another ploy of the UPA to stall the proceedings.

The JPC meeting started with economic affairs secretary R Gopalan appearing before the parliamentary committee, for the fourth time in three months, to clarify doubts on an inter-ministerial note.

The PMO had asked the finance ministry last year to prepare a detailed report on 2G spectrum allocation. The finance ministry had sent the note to the PMO on March 25, 2011.

While pointing out several discrepancies in the inter-ministerial note, members of the UPA alleged that there were inconsistencies in the note and it was a sloppy exercise by the ministries involved in the process. Members of the Congress also pointed out several inaccuracies.

When JPC members questioned Gopalan on why certain facts were missing from the internal note prepared by the finance ministry, he clarified that at the time the note was being prepared, all the documents related to 2G spectrum allocation were not available to them.

The note had suggested the telecom ministry could have opted for auction of 2G spectrum licences had then finance minister P Chidambaram insisted on it. The finance minister’s note suggested that Pranab Mukherjee had seen the document prepared by his ministry.

It was also pointed that in the course of preparation of the inter-ministerial note, the draft note on March 17, 2011, did not suggest that Chidambaram should have insisted on auction of 2G spectrum licences. The Congress members said the suggestion was added by the Cabinet Secretariat, which imagined that the finance minister had not pursued auctioning of licences.