2 G Scam - Manmohan Singh and an Unknown Hand by Pavithran
CBI VS Raja – Saini’s Full Judgement copy – Click the link
below to read it:
OP Saini’s judgement accused two officials in PMO for not dealing with
the letters received from A.Raja about the vital issue about issuing new
spectrum licences in a professional and proper manner. Raja’s particular letter to the PM had
indicated a shift in the telecom licensing policy – change initiated was from
date of application to date of payment of fee.
Saini alledged that this change of base date which was clearly a change
in the telecom licensing policy was not properly brought to the notice of PM by
these two officials in the PMO.
Saini had identified them and named them in his judgement as well and
they were Pulok Chatterjee and TKA Nair – more on Pulok rather than Nair.
Actually Saini said in his judgement – item 1806 that ‘the facts were misrepresented
to the PM’ and as a proof of his statement quoted two notings of Pulok in item
1805 as under:
Note 1: ‘PM wants this informally shared with the department. Does not
want a formal communication and wants PMO to be at arms length.’
Note 2: Informally shared with Secretary, DOT. We may keep on file.’
By these notings, Saini came to the conclusion that PM was misrepresented
not by A.Raja, but Pulok Chatterjee, in consultation with TKA Nair, as Pulok
had suppressed the most relevant and controversial part of the letter of A.
Raja from the PM. Saini had further observed that if PM, if he had been properly
briefed with the Raja’s decisions to go ahead with the first-cum, first-served
basis as envisaged by him which was not approved by the PM, could have stopped
Raja from going ahead with his decision to issue licenses.
Further, in item 1798, Saini criticized Pulok
Chatterjee thus: After discussing the matter with Sh. T. K. A. Nair, Pulok recorded
a long note running to 5 pages to A.Raja’s 2 pages letter with an ennexture of
3 pages (that also comes to 5 pages of Pulok!) and the note of Pulok did not
consider the most important issue of the issue of new licences.
Saini observed
further as under: Moreover, the note suffered from the vice of excessive length
and technical jargon. It is lengthier than the letter of Sh. A. Raja. Prime
Minister is a busy executive. Wherefrom would he find time to read such lengthy
notes. Prime Minister is not expected to be immersed in files. It was much
easier and better for him to read and understand the letter of Sh. A. Raja rather
than this note of Sh. Pulok Chatterjee.
Why Raja was bent
upon to his scheme of things – inspite of clear objections of PM in his refusal
for ‘First-come-First Severved earlier, but, were going on pestering his line
of action and immediately getting green signal – oral or written (seems to be
oral) – from Pulok to his secretary, Raja had moved fast and allotted licences!
– These were coolly ignored by Saini – praising Raja for his sharp and short
note, his Hard Core Politics, His justified Anger towards his seniormost
secretary etc.
The most
controversial lines in Saini judgement run thus:
Item 1799: The file was placed before the then Hon'ble
Prime Minister on 07.01.2008. It is not clear from the record, if this note was
seen by the then Hon'ble Prime Minister or not. However, it is clear that
somebody from the PMO had given a go ahead to the DoT for issue of new licences
and most probably it was Sh. Pulok Chatterjee himself, as his note records that
he had spoken to Secretary (T). … Had
the PMO hinted otherwise, the DoT would not have dared to go ahead with the
process of issue of LOIs as Secretary (T) had only joined on 01.01.2008 and was
quite new in his job. He would not have dared to go against the PMO.
Who is Pulok
Chatterji?
He has a long
history of association with the Gandhi family, serving in the PMO of Rajiv
Gandhi and then in Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and then as an officer on special
duty to Sonia Gandhi. The media has consistently described Chatterji as a family loyalist, when he was appointed as
additional secretary in UPA-I and when he became principal secretary in
UPA-II. So the question is, whose loyalty and interests was Chatterji
serving when he concealed information from Singh, as the CBI court judge has found?
And if Singh was actually misled or was completely unhappy with the events of
2007-08, why did he allow Chatterji
to return in 2011 at an even higher grade, this time as head of the PMO?
However,
it would be interesting to take a look at what Sanjay Baru, a former colleague
of Mr. Chattejee in the PMO had to say of him in his book, “The Accidental
Prime Minister”.
In the book Mr. Baru describes Mr. Chatterjee as a sort of
10 Janpath mole at 7 Race Course Road and in South Block.
Following is an excerpt from Baru’s book:
Pulok, like Nair, suffered from the handicap that his own
service had never regarded him as one of its bright sparks. A serving IAS
officer, he had never worked in any important ministry. He was inducted into
Rajiv’s PMO as a deputy secretary after having served as a district official in
Amethi, his constituency in Uttar Pradesh, where he had caught Rajiv’s eye.
After Rajiv’s death, he chose to work for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation where he
did some worthwhile social development work. But this meant that he was not
just outside government but completely identified with the Gandhi family.
When Pulok returned to government, it was to work on the
personal staff of Sonia Gandhi when she was leader of the Opposition in the Lok
Sabha.
Pulok, who was inducted into the Manmohan Singh PMO at the
behest of Sonia Gandhi, had regular, almost daily, meetings with Sonia at which
he was said to brief her on the key policy issues of the day and seek her
instructions on important files to be cleared by the PM.
Indeed, Pulok was the single most important point of
regular contact between the PM and Sonia. He was also the PMO’s main point of
contact with the National Advisory Council (NAC), a high-profile advisory body
chaired by Sonia Gandhi with social activists as members. It was sometimes
dubbed the Shadow Cabinet.
In para 1804, the
judge also said that the reason for placing such partial facts before the PM,
would be best known to Mr Chatterjee himself.
While the above is
clear, some questions do come up:
1. Were Chatterjee’s actions an error or a deliberate move?
2. If deliberate:
a.
Did he act on his own account, as just another bureaucrat, or was
he acting on someone’s behest?
b. Can it be ruled out that this entire process was orchestrated
to seem like it was an “error”, when in fact it was done to first facilitate,
and the cover-up, the controversial issue of licenses?
c. Who is most likely to have influenced Chatterjee to become the
fall-guy for an “error”?
The judgement does
not seem to deal with the above questions since the main accused was Mr A Raja,
and the judge has found him not guilty. While the Congress is celebrating the
judgement as a vindication of their stand, the above observation by the judge,
that the PM was “misled” by “suppression of facts”, by a PMO official who
happens to be a Sonia Gandhi loyalist, can be far more damaging than Raja
conviction.
The judgement
essentially clears A Raja, but shines the light of suspicion on the PMO and
associated characters.
In essence, Raja had written
letters to Singh informing him that licences would be issued to those who made
DD payments by the cut-off date (and cut-off date was arbitrarily brought
forward so that those who were aware of it in advance could comply while the
rest were unable to do it). This was the crux of the scam. However, as per the
court, Chatterji misinformed Singh, therefore allowing the scam to take
place, and only when the scam became national news did he go into damage
control.
Due to this judgement, from Raja
and Kanimozhi, the needle of suspicion in 2G Scam shifts to Soniaji – and its
man Pulok in PMO of Manmohan Singh.
Incidentally
some background check of OP Saini:
v Dec 21 2017 : Judge OP Saini clears Kanimozhi
and A Raja of all charges in 2G Scam
v Feb 2 2017 : Judge OP Saini clears Maran
brothers of all charges in Aircel-Maxis case.
v Feb 5 2012: Judge OP Saini clears P Chidambaram
of all charges in 2G Scam
Though we are not here to allege any
motives to Saini’s judgements, one could reasonably feel that all round praise
of the accused Raja could have been avoided and at the same time, all out
condemnations of some of the witnesses in his judgement as well.
An open accusation of Dr Swamy was
as under:
Distribution of 2G spectrum scam
bribe money which amounts to 60,000 crores :
A. Raja – 3000 Crore
B. P Chidambaram – 5000 Crore
C. M Karunanidhi – 16000 Crore
D. Sonia Gandhi sister Anuska – 18000 Crore
E. Sonia Gandhi sister Nadia – 18000 Crore
Let me
finish the article with two relevant quotes from Manmohan Singh and
P.Chidambaram:
Then PM
Manmohan Singh on February, 2011: Who got the lecences .. how FCFS (First Come
First Served) was implemented .. this was never discussed with me nor was it
brought to the cabinet. This was exclusively telecom minister’s decision.
P.
Chidambaram, Former Finance Minister on November 2014: 2G could have been
handed differently .. the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could have put his foot
down and said I am sorry, I would not let you go forward and follow the first
come first served route. He could have said that, otherwise after the 2G
licenses were granted, he could have said that we cancel their licences.
Our Manmohan
Singh had said, when questioned about his simply acknowledging Raja’s letter
about 2G Spectrum allotment, that ‘Acknowledgement of letter is also Action’.
When he had such ‘action oriented’ PM, we deserve Saini’s judgement and
acquittal of Raja.
When P.
Chidambaram as the then Home Minister, was questioned ‘why Centre is not
arresting Kashmir’s terrorists?’, he said: No action is also action!
Let us hope
that the High Court will render justice on the appeal of Saini’s 2G Verdicts of
Acquittal of all accused especially A. Raja.
Even ‘Hidden
Hand’ as observed by Saini in his judgement may be brought to witness box by
the High Court. Who knows?
THINK INDIA
THINK.
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