Unfazed by the acquittal of all accused in the 2G allocation case, the Government on Thursday asserted that the process used by the previous UPA regime to allocate lucrative spectrum was “faulty” and “dipped” in “corruption”.
Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said the fate of the 122 telecom licences belonging to eight operators that were cancelled in 2012 will be decided based on the position the investigative agency takes on the acquittals.
Auctioning scarce natural resources is the best way of allocation and not the policy of 'first-come-first-serve' followed by the UPA regime by basing the spectrum on 2001 prices, he said.
“Congress party jo chakma de rahi hai, wo puri tarah galat hai (the facade by the Congress party is all wrong),” he said.
On the matter, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the UPA government's 'first-come-first serve' policy was intended to serve only a select few and there was a huge element of arbitrariness in awarding spectrum.
He cited a Supreme Court verdict to assert corruption in the spectrum allocation and mocked the Congress by saying it was treating a trial court's acquittal of the accused in the case as “a badge of honour”.
Speaking to reporters hours after the special court acquitted all accused, including former telecom minister A Raja, on corruption and cheating charges, Sinha reeled out collections from the subsequent auctions to prove the point that allocations done in 2008 were wrong.
“One thing is clear that the 2G spectrum allotment process was faulty and dipped in corruption,” he said, adding “today, the trial court has given its decision and investigating agencies will see and decide next course of action”.
The Congress party claiming moral high ground after the verdict is nothing but “facade”, he said, adding that the process was held wrong by multiple agencies.
He recalled the Supreme Court decision of 2012 quashing all the 122 licences given under the then telecom minister Raja, saying the apex court had also held that the procedure followed by the UPA regime was wrong.