Centre asked to explain telecom appointments

The Delhi high court sought response from the Centre on Wednesday to a petition alleging irregularities in the appointment of CMDs of BSNL and MTNL.

The petition accused telecom minister A Raja of pushing his favourites into the posts.

A bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justice Manmohan issued notices to the Centre and the department of telecommunication (DoT) and asked them to file their responses on allegations that the procedure followed by the ministry for appointment of top posts in telecom PSUs was arbitrary and malafide.

The court also issued notices to Kuldeep Singh and RK Upadhyay who have been recommended as CMDs for MTNL and BSNL respectively.

The order was passed after hearing a joint petition filed by an NGO, Telecom Watchdog and Executive Association of Sanchar Nigam, which sought to quash the appointments.

The NGO alleged in its petition that DoT had arbitrarily changed the selection criteria formulated by the Sam Pitroda committee set up by the prime minister for appointment of eligible persons to top posts in the public sector.

It said Raja was trying to put TCIL CMD RK Upadhyay at the helm of BSNL by changing the selection process and bypassing the selection criteria formulated by the Pitroda committee.

“The petitioners brought this arbitrary change to the notice of the government on October 1, 2010, clearly pointing out the involvement of the telecom minister and his trusted man AK Chandolia,” the petitioners’ counsel said.