Will call PM, Sibal, Chidambaram as witnesses: Raja

Jailed former Telecom Minister A Raja on Wednesday told a Delhi court that he would get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the then finance minister P Chidambaram and the current Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal summoned as witnesses to prove that the government did not incur any loss in the 2G allocation.

"Aaj main bata dena chahta hu ki main Prime Minister, tabke Finance Minister or vartman ke Telecom Minister ko battor gawah balaunga (Today, I want to state that I would get the prime minister, the then finance minister and the present telecom minister summoned as witnesses)," senior advocate Sushil Kumar, appearing for Raja, told Special CBI Judge O P Saini.

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The moment it is established that there was no loss to the state exchequer, the whole case of cheating and conspiracy in the spectrum allocation will go, he said, claiming that the prime minister and two other ministers would be able to establish that.

He said Raja would move an application under section 91 of the CrPC for getting certain documents from the CBI which had so far not been brought before the court.

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The defence counsel also raised the issue of offloading of equity by Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd and Unitech (Tamil Nadu) Wireless Pvt Ltd to Dubai-based Etisalat and Norway-based Telenor respectively and maintained that there was no criminality involved in those transactions.

"First of all there was no sale of licences, then the offloading of equities was within the limit of 74 per cent. Moreover, the transactions were cleared at the highest level (the Foreign Investment Promotion Board)," he said.