Raja submissions no evidence: Sibal

Deploring the attempt of his predecessor A Raja to implicate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

Deploring the attempt of his predecessor A Raja to implicate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation case,Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday said submissions made by an accused before a court at the time of framing of charges cannot be construed as evidence.

In a statement,Sibal refuted claims made by Raja in his submissions made before the special court stating that the sale of equity in telecom companies Swan and Unitech was in the knowledge of both the Prime Minister as well as the then Finance Minister Chidambaram. Sibal said what had happened in case of Swan and Unitech was not sale of equity but issuance of additional equity.

In any case,this issue has nothing to do either with the grant of 2G spectrum licences or the pricing of spectrum, he said.

Sibal clarified that what had actually occurred in the cases of Swan and Unitech was dilution of equity and claimed that the expression sale of equity used by Raja was therefore not appropriate.

To clarify further,it may be stated that infusion of additional equity was the accepted policy framework approved by the NDA government,in spite of the then prevailing lock-in period of five years during which the licensee could not transfer the licence. Even the lock-in period of five years was done away with in 2003 by the NDA government. This means that the licensee could transfer and sell his licence to a third party without restriction,immediately upon the grant of licence, he said.

Sibal said it was the UPA government that re-introduced a lock-in period,that of three years,in 2009. However,it did not prevent the licensee company or holding company to seek infusion of additional equity by third parties. This was done both in the case of Swan and Unitech. The Finance Ministry was of the opinion that neither of these cases involved any divestment but dilution of equity. Hence the transactions were legal, he said.

Sibal also claimed at the time when the licences were granted,the first-come-first-served policy of the NDA government was in place. The irregularities if any are with reference to the implementation of the first-come-first-served policy, he said.