Former DoT official A.K. Srivastava on Wednesday accused Telecom Minister A. Raja’s private secretary R.K. Chandolia of favouring Unitech group in 2G spectrum allocation case.

Deposing before the special CBI court, Srivastava, who worked in DoT as Deputy Director General (Access Service) said that he was instructed by Chandolia not to receive new applications for 2G spectrum licences after the applications of Unitech group had been received.

The testimony of Srivastava is vital as he earlier in his statement to the CBI had said that Raja had noted in a DoT file that the cut-off date for receiving applications for grant of the 2G spectrum licences would be Oct 1, 2007.

He said that on September 24, 2007, after 167 applications were already received, R.K. Chandolia asked him whether applications of Unitech group have been received.

“I enquired from dealing section and replied back to him that applications of Unitech group have not been received in the section till then”, Srivastava said.

He said that he was then instructed by Chandolia applications of Unitech group will be submitted to DoT the same day”, Srivastava told Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini.

Srivastava’s statement would continue on August 6, 2012.

 Srivastava said that when he countered Chandolia that it was “not possible” to stop receiving applications for UASL after Unitech group submits their applications, he was then told to originate a proposal to put a cut-off date on receipt of further UASL applications.

 “As directed by the PS to the then MOC&IT A. Raja, I originated this proposal in the file proposing that we may announce a cut-off date of October 10, 2007 for receipt of new UASL applications till further orders,” he said.

Srivastava said he submitted the file to Raja through proper channel and in the evening of September 24, 2007, he again received a call from Chandolia to verify whether Unitech group companies had filed their applications.

He said that he had proposed a cut-off date of October 10, 2007 for receipt of applications for the UASL but Raja on September 24, 2007 decided to keep it to October 1, 2007 in view of pendency of large number of applications.