Ratan Tata and Nira Radia were questioned by the Parliament’s  Public Account Committee regarding their relationship with the DMK party and a number of related issues.

They appeared before the committee separately and were asked about the veracity of the leaked tapes of secretly-recorded telephone conversations; Tata''s letter to DMK boss M Karunanidhi praising former telecom minister A Raja; and the role of Radia in the affairs of the group and the telecom sector. 

The PAC, headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi , is among a slew of state agencies probing the telecom spectrum allotment scam. Speaking at a press conference after the sessions with Tata and Radia, Joshi said the industrialist was candid and straightforward while Radia was evasive in her response. 

"She did not give straight answers and was in no mood to place facts before the committee... At times she said can't say if this is the correct version, can't remember, etc," he said. Joshi read out portions of Tata's 2007 letter to Karunanidhi and asked him if the letter was written with the intent of enabling Raja to continue in the telecom ministry. 

Tata responded that the letter was not an exercise in promoting Raja, but said his company had problems with Raja's predecessor in the telecom ministry, DMK's Dayanidhi Maran. Tata said it was not a personal rivalry, but Maran was blatantly favouring the GSM operators (a technology standard that rivals Tata Telecom's original standard of choice, CDMA). "But I have always maintained the highest ethical standards," he told the committee. 

The committee also raised the issue of a letter written by Tata in 2001 to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee , requesting that certain policy matters be referred to a group of ministers. It asked Tata if he had written to the current PM about his grievances. Tata replied in the negative, but said he had a long list of grievances. 

Samajwadi Party member Reoti Raman Singh brought up the allegation that Tata group company Voltas had 'transferred' land in Chennai to the DMK. Tata clarified his group did not own the land under question and were tenants there, and the question of transferring the ownership of a leased property does not arise. Tata's public exchange of charges with telecom entrepreneur and MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar also came up for discussion. 

Tata said Chandrashekhar's charges were false. The Tata group had not issued a formal statement at the time this story was written. The Central Bureau of Investigation has submitted its chargesheet in the Supreme Court, and several people, including Raja, are in its cus-tody in connection with the scam. 

A joint parliamentary committee will separately probe the scam that is estimated to have cost the exchequer tens of thousands of crores. Tapes Doctored, says Radia Radia told the committee the tapes were doctored, but the parts she had listened to at the CBI offices were genuine, people with knowl-edge of her deposition said. She could not give a conclusive reply when asked which were those parts, these people said.