The one-man committee examining spectrum allocation concluded that, since 2001, the Dept. of Telecom's procedures have not been in tune with the government's stated policies and directions.
Seeking to drag in the earlier NDA government, the one-man committee that examined spectrum allocation from 2001 said there have been violations of procedures in giving 2G licences while also pointing a finger at A Raja, saying his actions in 2007-08 were not consistent with Cabinet decisions.
Releasing excerpts of the findings of the Justice Shivraj Patil Committee, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today announced that the report would be referred to the CBI which is already investigating the 2G scam allegedly under Raja.
Significantly, the committee determined that, since 2001, the internal procedures adopted by tht Department of Telecom (DoT) and government have not been in tune with the extant policies and directions of the government.
It has held that the decisions taken by the DoT regarding the grant of Unified Access Service Licences (UASL), bundled with spectrum, right from 2003 onwards and including the actions in 2007-08, were neither consistent with the decisions of Union Cabinet in 2003 nor the recommendations of telecom regulator TRAI.
On the controversial decision of Raja to advance the cut-off date for consideration to grant licences, the committee found that it was neither according to procedures nor did it meet the requirements set out in law.
"[The] procedure formulated... is not traceable either to powers vested in terms if any procedure laid out or satisfies the requistes of law, in particular, the principles of objectivity, fairness of transparency," it said.
The report also did not approve of the decision to change the procedure regarding acceptance of applications for the purpose of FCFS basis.
"Prior to January 7, 2008, the date of receipt of application in DoT was reckoned for the purpose of FCFS and after January 7, 2008, the date of compliance of LoI was reckoned for the purposes of FCFS. This was also not in tune with extant policy," the report said.
Sibal said that all decisions taken since 2003 with regard to spectrum allocation were wrong.
To a question on Raja claiming he had followed his predecessors, he said "Raja has always said that he followed past policies and past policies were themselves wrong."
The telecom regulator TRAI in its recommendations on October 27, 2003 said "no spectrum should be bundled with licence and there should be multi-stage bidding for allocating airwaves." But the Department of Telecom did not follow it, he said.
"All spectrum allocation, be it start-up 4.4 Mhz, 6.2 Mhz or additional airwaves, were wrong," he said.
"We are giving this report to the CBI, who is already investigating into the issue... Then it is between CBI and the Supreme Court," Sibal said.
About 17 officials including past Telecom Ministers and other senior bureaucrats have been held responsible for not following the policy in transparent manner, Sibal said but declined to give names.
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