Raja and RK Chandolia made sure Telecommunications Consultants India Limited chairman and managing director RK Upadhyay became BSNL chief and Kuldip Singh MTNL chief.
Tainted former telecom minister A Raja connived with trusted aide RK Chandolia to arbitrarily change eligibility norms in complete defiance of the prime minister-appointed Sam Pitroda committee’s recommendations to fill top BSNL and MTNL posts.
Raja and Chandolia, who is now under CBI scanner, made sure Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) chairman and managing director RK Upadhyay became BSNL chief and Kuldip Singh MTNL chief.
Above allegations have been made in a petition filed by Sanchar Nigam Executive Association in the Delhi high court. In response, the court has stayed the selection procedure.
After considering the poor performances of BSNL and MTNL, prime minister Manmohan Singh had in January constituted a committee of experts headed by Sam Pitroda, his advisor on public information infrastructure and innovation.
The other members of the committee were HDFC Bank chairman Deepak Parekh and then department of telecommunications (DoT) secretary PJ Thomas.
The Pitroda committee submitted its report in February and recommended that the ministry should not interfere in day-to-day working of BSNL. It also recommended creation of separate posts of chairman and managing director and said “the chairman should be an eminent person from the private sector with strategic vision”.
Thereafter in July 2010, DoT invited applications for the posts of CMD, BSNL and MTNL. It received more than 170 applications, but the petitioners came to know on September 30 that DoT had sent letters to only a few applicants on September 28, secretly inviting them for an interview on October 3.
The government had formed a six-member search-cum-selection committee under the chairmanship of the cabinet secretary, but it was kept in the dark.
“The interview took place on October 3 when the entire country was busy watching inauguration of the Commonwealth Games and in the absence of chairman of the selection committee, i.e. the cabinet secretary. Of the 12-15 candidates invited, five were short-listed,” the petitioners claimed.
On October 4, the short-listed candidates were taken to the cabinet secretary for the next round of interview. “Finally, it is learnt that RK Upadhyay and Kuldip Singh were recommended for the top posts in BSNL and MTNL,” the petitioners said, quoting a whistle-blowing letter they had then written to PM.
The petitioners claimed Upadhyay did not merit such an important post since he was heading a small company, TCIL, with a turnover of Rs733 crore during 2009-10 and a meagre profit of Rs11 crore.
They also challenged the appointment of Kuldip Singh, who is director (technical) on the MTNL board since December 2004 and also holds the additional charge of CMD since January 2010.
“In his tenure, MTNL has experienced its worst-ever performance, both in terms of finances and network quality,” the petitioners argued.
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