2G scam: Ratan Tata appears before PAC
April 4th, 2011 - 6:25 pm ICT by ANINew Delhi, Apr 4 (ANI): Industrialist Ratan Tata appeared before the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today for questioning in connection with the 2G spectrum scam.
According to reports, Tata is understood to have asked the reasons for Tata Teleservices’ interest in launching GSM mobile services, when it was already a key player in the CDMA technology for such services.
Corporate lobbyist Niira Radia earlier today appeared before the PAC at the Parliament House complex here.
Radia’s tapped phone conversations with politicians, corporates, bureaucrats, and journalists form a key part of the investigations into the 2G spectrum scam.
Radia, who runs a public relations agency to promote the interests of several corporate houses with interest in telecom, lobbied to ensure that DMK leader and A Raja gets the Telecom portfolio. Raja is now in jail in connection with the scam.
A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), chaired by Congress leader P C Chacko, has also been set up to look into all the details of the 2G allocation in 2008 and in the telecom sector from 1998 onwards.
Representatives of four telecom firms RCom, Swan Telecom and Unitech, have been called on April 5.
Swan Telecom (now DB Etisalat) chief Shahid Usman Balwa is already in custody in connection with the scam.
The others arrested in connection with the case are A Raja, his personal secretary RK Chandolia and former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behuria.
Raja was forced to resign from the Union Cabinet last year after the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) faulted him for undervaluing spectrum to favour companies who were largely ineligible for 2G spectrum, and added that the government had probably lost Rs.1.76 lakh crore in estimated revenue. (ANI)
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Tags: cdma technology, chacko, comptroller and auditor general, comptroller and auditor general of india, congress leader, corporate houses, corporate lobbyist, crore, industrialist, parliament house, parliamentary committee, personal secretary, phone conversations, public accounts committee, siddharth, tata teleservices, telecom firms, telecom sector, union cabinet, unitech