Congress leader Manish Tewari on Saturday said there is a need to revisit former finance minister P. Chidambaram's comment that the UPA Government should have cancelled all 2G spectrum licenses when the scam came to light, and look at it in perspective.
"You need to look at the issue in a perspective. On October 18, 2007, when the then Telecommunications Regulatory Authority chairperson, who is now the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, made a recommendation that the licenses with bundled spectrum should be given at 2001 prices, and subsequently, when those recommendations were accepted by the telecom commissions and licenses were distributed, there was an inflection point when reports had emerged in the public space with regard to the process by which the licenses were granted," said Tewari.
"Maybe at that time, the Cabinet should have collectively taken it within their preview, because, it is the collective responsibility of the Cabinet. Therefore, if I were to read the former finance minister's statement in a holistic perspective, what he was possible alluding to, was that the Cabinet could have taken that into their considerations," he added.
Chidambaram had yesterday said that the mishandling of the 2G scam hurt the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress leader, who was responding to a question related to a discussion held during a book launch function in the national capital last evening, said the then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should have put his foot down without waiting for the Supreme Court order. He added that the issue of 2G licence could have been handled differently.
