Raja, aides remanded in CBI custody for 5 days

The CBI today accused former Telecom Minister A Raja of causing a loss of Rs 22,000 crore to the exchequer by favouring some telecom firms in award of the 2G spectrum licences and demanded his custody for five days, which a city court granted.

Raja, former Telecom Secretary Siddartha Behura and Raja's former Personal Secretary R K Chandolia, were produced before Special CBI Judge O P Saini a day after they were arrested in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Wearing a grey safari suit, the 47-year-old DMK MP appeared cool and composed and greeted the judge with folded hands.

His counsel Ramesh Gupta sought time for a private conversation with Raja, which the judge allowed for ten minutes.

Seeking their custody, CBI counsel Akhilesh argued that Raja had caused a loss of Rs 22,000 crores to the public exchequer by favouring some telecom firms in award of the 2G spectrum licences.

He said due to Raja, at least two telecom firms, including Swan Telecom and Unitech, were benefited to the tune of several hundred crores of rupees by selling their stakes to various other global firms shortly after getting licences.

The CBI said the former minister's custody was essential for further questioning because he had been evasive in replying to their queries during his interrogation earlier at the agency's headquarters.

This is for the first time that the CBI is directly accusing Raja of complicity in the 2G scam after it had filed an FIR against unknown officials and private persons and companies on October 21, 2009.

Though the agency has pegged the loss at Rs 22,000 crore based on the calculations made by the CVC, the CAG had in its report had projected a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore.