D.S.Mathur, former secretary, Department of Telecommunications has stated that he resisted A. Raja, Minister of Communications and IT’s attempts to grant spectrum licences without first framing an equitable and transparent policy, according to news reports.
Mathur, who retired from his office on 31 December, 2007 said when Raja did not heed his counsel, he told the joint secretary concerned that he would not sign any files on licensing matters, therefore no files should be put up before him. He added that the applications were ready for scrutiny in the first week of November 2007 and had he agreed to toe Raja’s line, these licences would have been granted later that month.
He added that when Raja became the Minister in May 2007, he called Mathur and expressed his desire to award around 500 new licences. Mathur?s response was that the same was not possible as there was not much of spectrum and if so many licences were given, it would raise a question mark on whether spectrum needs of the existing operators could be met or not and whether new licensees could be given spectrum. Mathur further said he had told Raja that in the event licences are given and the government fails to give spectrum, companies could move to court.
Raja?s controversial decision to advance the cut-off date for processing the applications for licences, from 1 October, 2007 to 25 September, 2008 was also not passed by Mathur.
In response to this, Raja has claimed that Mathur was part of all decisions related to 2G spectrum allocation. He further rubbished Mathur’s claims that his recommendation that spectrum be allotted through the auction process to ensure transparency was ignored.
Raja added that suggestions on the likely availability of spectrum were also useful in arriving at the cut-off date of 25 September, 2007 for the allocation of the airwaves. However, he did not specify who had made the suggestions.
When asked whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would ask him to resign, Raja said the question was ?fictitious.? He responded saying he has full confidence in himself and the steps taken with regard to spectrum allocation were done in exact accordance with the law.
