Former A. Raja, former Minister of Telecommunications and IT has been arrested, along with two of his former associates in connection with the 2G spectrum issue. Raja, his former personal secretary R.K. Chandolia and Siddhartha Behura, former secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) were arrested for allegedly misusing their official position and manipulating tendering procedures to benefit certain telecom companies in obtaining spectrum. Raja, who has already been questioned four times by the agency, has been arrested over two months after he was forced to resign in the wake of the spectrum issue.
It is believed that he was confronted with documents recovered from computers seized during searches conducted by the investigation agency earlier at his premises. He was also asked about his conversations with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and why he advanced the cut-off date of applying for license for spectrum allocation in 2007 by a week.
Raja was forced to resign on November 14, 2010, in the wake of the Comptroller and Auditor General?s (CAG) report which held that the spectrum allocation at undervalued prices resulted in a notional loss of Rs 1.76 trillion to the state exchequer.
Meanwhile, the CBI has also questioned Pradip Baijal, former chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and D.S. Mathur, former secretary, DoT in connection with the case.
