New Delhi, Sep 21: The Telecom Ministry could have gone in for auction of 2G spectrum licenses had the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram insisted on this, according to a Finance Ministry document submitted to the Supreme Court today.
The March 25, 2011 office memorandum by the Finance Ministry headed by Pranab Mukherjee sent to the Prime Minister's Office(PMO) also suggested that Chidambaram and the jailed former telecom minister A Raja had jointly determined the price for the 2G spectrum in 2008.
The document was filed by Janata party leader Subramanian Swamy before a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly.
The coverning note of the memorandum sent by a Finance Ministry official DR P G S Rao to the PMO said it was seen by Mukherjee.
Swamy, who has sought probe against Chidambaram for his alleged culpability in the price fixation of the spectrum, has contended that CBI was only holding Raja for the loss of revenue to the exchequer in the spectrum allocation.
Swamy contended that there were four meetings on the issue of price fixation for the spectrum in which Chidambaram and Raja sat with the Prime Minister in the final meeting. The document placed by Swamy stated that a note was sent by the then Finance Minister (Chidambaram) to the Prime Minister on January 15, 2008 in which auction of spectrum was argued but only with the reference to spectrum beyond the ‘start up' spectrum.
Further, it said that in a subsequent meeting on January 30, 2008 between Chidambaram and Raja, it was noted by the then Finance Minister that “he was for now not seeking to revisit the current regimes for entry fee or revenue shares”.
The note also ruled out the option of auctioning spectrum for various reasons. PTI
