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Policy & Regulation
2G scam: Patil submits report to Telecom Minister
TT Correspondent |  |  31 Jan 2011

The one-man panel that went into the procedures for giving 2G licences between 2001 and 2009 has identified the officials responsible for lapses in implementing the policy in a transparent and fair manner.

Justice (Retd) Shivraj Patil on Monday submitted the report to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal and said: “I have identified the officials on whose part there were deficiency or were lapses“.

The one-man committee was set up by Sibal to look into the policies and procedures followed during the distribution of licences in 2001—2009, a period that includes the NDA regime, and ascertain if they were followed in a transparent manner.

“Some officials have been named and some procedures have been commented upon... What the future course of action should be for the grant of spectrum has been commented upon,” Kapil Sibal said after receiving the report.

Asked about the role of former telecom minister A. Raja in the allocation procedure, both Sibal and Patil declined to comment.

“The Central Bureau of Investigation is dealing with the criminal culpability... That is a different issue. My report deals with the procedures followed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) while granting licences and allocating spectrum during 2001 to 2009,” Patil told reporters here.

Patil pointed out that there was some difficulty in procuring original documents in some cases, as the same were with the CBI, who is investigating into the 2G spectrum scam.

“However, the copies were produced by my reference...,” he acknowledged.

The committee was constituted to look at the internal departmental procedures adopted by the DoT during 2001—09 with the issuance of telecom, access service licences and allocation of spectrum to all telecom access service licencees during this period.

This was done in view of government auditor Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) quantifying the revenue loss to the exchequer on account of the sale of 2G licences and spectrum in 2008 by the then Telecom Minister A. Raja, who insists that he only followed the policies of his predecessors, at up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

Justice Patil has submitted a 150-page report with annexures running into 1,300 pages.

However, Mr. Sibal did not divulge the details of the findings, but said he would soon look into the report.

    
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31 Jan 2011(IST)  
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