New Delhi: Former Telecom Minister A Raja today told a special court that he had never misled then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on any issues relating to procedures to be followed for allocation of 2G spectrum allocation.
Opposing CBI's allegation that he had misled Singh on 2G spectrum issues, Raja said that he had delivered whatever he had conveyed to the then PM in his letters addressed to him in November 2007.
"I was not misleading the then Prime Minister in my letters when I said adequate spectrum will be available to accommodate the applicants who had applied till September 25, 2007. Whatever I told the PM, I delivered that within a year. This shows I was not lying to him," Raja's counsel Manu Sharma told Special CBI Judge O P Saini.
During the final arguments in the case, Sharma alleged that it was the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) which had written to the Prime Minister that there was no adequate available spectrum.
"COAI goes and tells the Prime Minister that there was no adequate spectrum. This was a last ditch effort by COAI to stall entire proceedings in Department of Telecommunications (DoT) regarding allocation of spectrum," he said.
Raja's counsel also dealt with CBI's allegation that the then telecom minister had unilaterally advanced the cut-off date to September 25, 2007, for receiving applications seeking 2G spectrum allocation to favour Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd (STPL) and Unitech.
He said that Swan had applied for licences in February- March, 2007 and Unitech applied on September 24, 2007.
"Why would Swan conspire with someone who came in September 2007 ? This would have minimised Swan's chances of getting the licences," he said during the arguments which would continue tomorrow.
Raja's counsel also claimed that the CBI has deliberately not placed before the court the records of 51 new Unified Access Services Licences (UASL) which were granted between 2003 and 2007 before Raja took charge as the telecom minister.
Raja had yesterday told the court that he had informed the then Prime Minister about Law Ministry's opinion to refer the matter of processing of applications seeking 2G spectrum to an empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM).
Referring to the letters written by Raja to the then Prime Minister, his counsel had said he had informed Manmohan Singh about everything that was happening on the issue.
Besides Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Unitech Ltd Managing Director Sanjay Chandra, STPL promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka and three top executives of Reliance ADAG - Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair - are facing trial in the case.
Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal,Kalaignar TV Director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also accused in the case, besides three telecom companies -- Reliance Telecom Ltd, STPL and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd.
In its charge sheet, CBI had alleged a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of 122 licences for 2G spectrum, which was scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 2, 2012.
All these accused, who are out on bail, have denied the allegations levelled against them by CBI.
