Nothing new in FinMin letter, CBI tells SC

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s arrival from New York was awaited here, law minister Salman Khurshid called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi to brief her on the latest controversy between finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and his predecessor, P chidambaram, on the 2G spectrum allocation.

In court, counsels for the central government and the Central Bureau of Investigation tried on Tuesday to shield home minister Chidambaram from fresh investigation in the scam, but they differed in their approaches. While the government maintained it was for the trial court to decide on a fresh probe, based on the new documents portrayed as a rift between Chidambaram and present finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the CBI said it had already studied the evidence in question and had found nothing new in it.

CBI counsel K K Venugopal told the court it had examined some 40,000 pages of evidence in the 2G scam and what was produced in the court last week by Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy was only a summary of the findings made in March this year. It did not find any need to launch a fresh probe based on the documents sent by the finance ministry to the prime minister.

On the government’s saying the CBI would consider the new documents and may file a status report, Venugopal stressed it was an autonomous body and nobody could speak on its behalf. Since the documents had already been examined, there was no question of fresh investigation, Venugopal said.

The bench of judges G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly adjourned the hearing till tomorrow . Subramanian Swamy last week filed the controversial documents which showed that Chidambaram, when finance minister in the UPA-1 government, was aware of the policy on allocation of spectrum which is now the subject matter of the scam. Swamy wanted an investigation into the role of Chidambaram, alleging jailed ex-telecom minister A Raja and the former had colluded to push forward the policy, causing losses to the exchequer.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was in Kolkata on Tuesday said he would speak on the finance ministry's note only after the PM’s return. " I am going back to Delhi by tomorrow evening. If there is anything to be told after talking to the prime minister and my other colleagues, I will make my comment," he said. The government on Tuesday also reiterated there was no tussle among senior ministers. It also played down a late night meeting yesterday between Mukherjee, Khurshid and the minister of state inthe PM’s Office, V Narayanasamy.

“The matter is in the court and the Supreme Court is monitoring it and JPC is looking into it. It would not be proper to discuss this issue now," Narayanasamy told reporters when asked whether the 2G issue came up at the meeting. "I meet the finance minister twice every week to discuss Parliament issues. I met him yesterday to discuss routine government matters."

JPC PRESSURE
However, opposition parties yielded no ground at all. During a stormy meeting on Tuesday of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the controversy, members of the opposition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the CPI(M) joined hands to demand that finance secretary R S Gujral and department of economic affairs (DEA) R Gopalan be present during the next meeting. They told JPC chairman P C Chacko that no business of the committee should take place till both officers were present.

“Why should we get to know about documents related to the 2G spectrum through the media? If the Union government purposely didn’t submit the document to the committee, then it is breach of privilege or else it was a serious lapse on the part of the government,” said a senior member.

As a result of the pressure, the committee cancelled its scheduled meeting tomorrow and would now meet on October 12, when the finance secretary and DEA secretary would be asked to clarify their stand.

“The next obvious people for whom a demand would be made are Mukherjee, Chidambaram and officials of the PM’s Office. We will have to take prior permission from Lok Sabha Speaker to call Union ministers and we are hopeful of getting it,” the JPC member said.

JPC members also protested that when finance secretary Gujral had appeared before committee on June 8, he hadn’t told it about the note sent by the finance ministry to the PMO.