Congress fields Sibal to defend Chidambaram

Fearing that the Opposition may again stall Parliament next week, demanding the resignation of then finance minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum scam, a wary Congress today fielded telecom minister Kapil Sibal to come out in full support of the latter. Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to “malign and defame” now home minister Chidambaram, Sibal said the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was trying to “foist” culpability on him (Chidambaram) in the case.

In a hurriedly called press conference, Sibal said, “We reject all allegations against him. Chidambaram is a valued colleague. He discharged his duties without any fear or favour.”

Citing the facts on record, Sibal said then telecom minister A Raja did not hold any meeting with Chidambaram before the Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to telecom operators on January 10, 2008.

He said, “The records will show the finance ministry had no knowledge the LoIs would be issued on January 10, 2008.”

Sibal said that Chidambaram, as the finance minister, raised the issue of entry fee revision, but the telecom ministry was of the view that it would adopt the same policy which had been followed since 2003. This included charging the same entry fee of about Rs 1,650 crore.

“It is, therefore, preposterous to suggest that Chidambaram has any role in fixing the entry fee for the LoIs issued on January 10, 2008,” he said.

Sibal also defended the policy on 2G spectrum allocation and pointed out that the courts had not made out any charge of loss of revenue. “The policy was right. The matter in the courts is whether it was implemented properly or not,” he said.

As for Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy’s petition being allowed by a city court, Sibal said the magistrate concerned was only following the law. The law says that if a complainant goes to court with a complaint, his statement has to be recorded ex- parte by the magistrate under Section 200 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Of the 2G allocations, he said the Department of Telecom (DoT) had maintained that dual technology licences were issued based on recommendations given by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which had not suggested any change in the entry fee.

Sibal said this was “yet another desperate attempt (by the Opposition) to make the institution of parliamentary democracy dysfunctional.” The Congress is desperate to have the house functioning and running, with the larger part of the session having been disrupted over inflation and foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail.