Ratan Tata wants govt to probe real 2G scam

Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata today said the government must stop the “banana republic kind of attacks”, as the real 2G scam was becoming hidden behind a smokescreen.

In his first comments after transcripts of lobbyist Niira Radia’s alleged phone conversations with top politicians and journalists were published in two magazines, Tata told news channel NDTV that the real issues that needed to be investigated were “hoarding and out-of-turn allocation of spectrum to important players”. The government should investigate, appoint an auditor and book the guilty under due process of law, he said.

An alleged conversation between Tata and Radia also figured in audio recordings posted on the magazines’ websites. Radia’s firm, Vaishnavi Communications, handles public relations for the Tata group. She has been in the eye of a storm ever since the alleged conversations recorded between May 11 and July 11, 2009, appeared in the media.

Tata, however, did not mention Radia by name during the NDTV interview.

He said the media “is going crazy in alleging, convicting and executing” people on the basis of a flood of unauthorised tapes. “It is a murky time. It’s a confusing time for me because just a couple of weeks ago, we were sitting on top of a summit, with President Obama showering praise on what we had done, talking about maturity, talking of us having emerged and not being an emerging force. And then we have somewhat slipped into a series of allegations,” he said.

Tata’s observations come just days after his recent comments in Dehradun created quite a flutter. Tata had referred to a fellow industrialist, who had called the Tata group stupid for not meeting what he believed to be the then civil aviation minister’s demands, if the group considered getting an airline licence important.

“We do not operate that way. I wanted to go to bed at night knowing that I had not succumbed,” Tata had said.

When NDTV mentioned the series of scandals of late, including the Central Bureau of Investigation’s unearthing of a corporate loan racket, Tata said: “You know it’s a funny thing. Many of these things I believe have been sourced by vested interests, who want to make these connections to make it happen. What such people perhaps forget is that there is bigger issue to the nation.”