2G: Raja says he will get PM as witness

Jailed DMK MP and former communications minister A Raja, presenting his defence for the second time in a special trial court, on Wednesday said he would get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister and former finance minister P Chidambaram and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal as witnesses to prove the government did not incur any loss due to the controversial allocation of 2G spectrum in 2007-08.

Yesterday, DMK MP Kanimozhi, also lodged in prison in connection with the 2G scam, had argued the Prime Minister must be summoned as a witness.

Dismissing the CAG report on 2G allocation as ‘flawed’, Raja challenged the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department to prove that he had taken any unilateral decision on the allocation of the 2G spectrum. Raja presented his arguments before trial court judge O P Saini along with his counsel Sushil Kumar.

For the hearing that lasted three hours, Raja presented his defence vehemently. He also trained his guns on the media for the coverage of the issue. “The media, which is supposed to act as an asylum for society, has turned into a slaughter house for Raja,” he said.

Raja’s counsel Kumar submitted before the judge that CBI had not been able to show any quid-pro-quo for the award of licence to Unitech. “So far as Reliance Telecom Ltd and its three officials are concerned, no material has been brought on record as to what motive I had. Even the CBI does not say anything against Reliance Telecom as to what it earned,” the defence counsel said.

Kumar also brought up the documents seized by CBI with regards to investigation of Loop Telecom, Spice Communications, Idea Cellular and other companies. “How many trials would I (Raja) be facing, as for the last two years the CBI has failed to decide the fate of the seized documents pertaining to other telecom companies,” he added.

The defence counsel also quoted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s submission to the CBI, which said it did not recommend the auction of 2G spectrum. The regulator’s statement may go in Raja’s favour as he has maintained that he followed its recommendation and therefore went ahead with the first-come first-serve allocation rather than the auction process.