Kapil Sibal's actions a smokescreen to let off guilty corporates: CPI(M)

The CPI(M) today alleged that "token actions" proposed by new telecom minister Kapil Sibal on the second-generation mobile telephony spectrum issue were only a "smokescreen" to allow the culprits to go scot-free and demanded that not only ministers and officials but also guilty corporates be brought to book.

"The manner in which Sibal... is going about the matter raises suspicions that only some token actions would be taken. What is the need for an internal enquiry committee when already notice has been issued to 85 companies asking why their licences should not be cancelled," CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said.

"Why is the minister not categorical about declaring that licences will be cancelled of all those companies that have adopted illegal means? Why is the minister stating that auction of the spectrum may not be the best way forward?

"In all this we are seeing the now familiar pattern --a smokescreen to see that the main culprits, that is corporates, are let off the hook," Karat said in an article in the forthcoming issue of party organ People's Democracy.

The real reason why the government does not want a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) is because "such an inquiry will show how the entire system has been manipulated by the nexus which gets policies formulated and implemented for their benefit," he alleged.

"Not only the minister and the guilty officials but the corporates who suborned and bribed them should be brought to book and punished."

Whether Dayanidhi Maran or A Raja are made the Telecom Minister "becomes an issue for rival corporates to intervene and influence. Even if no choice is made on this basis, the performance of the minister will be judged by how amenable he is to the interests of big business.

"One has only to recall how Manishankar Aiyer was replaced as the minister for petroleum and natural gas by Murli Deora in the first term of the UPA government," Karat said.