The Supreme Court will on Monday hear a petition against Telecom Minister A Raja on his alleged involvement in the allocation of 2-G Spectrum. A Bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly will hear the petition filed by NGO CPIL,which has alleged that the CBI is dragging its feet in the probe against Raja. The apex court,which had issued notices to Raja and multiple probe agencies involved in the investigation of the case,is hearing arguments on whether or not it should monitor the probe or hand it over to a Special Investigation Team. The petition claims that Raja brought about a substantial loss of public revenue by disregarding expert advice within his own government to allocate,and not publicly auction,spectrum licences to certain private companies in 2007 at 2001 prices. The petition claims that the spectrum was later sold by these companies at enhanced prices,causing a loss to the national exchequer. A counter-affidavit filed by the Department of Telecommunications last week retorted that Raja was acting as per national policy and had invited fresh competition,which proved beneficial to telecom revenue in the past three years. The department stated that the spectrum was not sold but the companies that had bought them had integrated the services of experienced telecom entities by giving them shares. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate had also filed affidavits in the court,choosing not to disclose much,but agreeing that the investigation was complex and underway. Mondays hearing comes after a CAG report that is said to have detected a revenue loss of up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore. In its report to the government,the CAG is believed to have said non-auction of 2G spectrum in 2008 may have cost the exchequer up to Rs 1.40 lakh crore besides over Rs 36,000 crore on account of additional spectrum to existing players beyond 6.2 Mhz.
