The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has sent to the Telecom Ministry, a volley of questions including why views of the Finance Ministry, Law Ministry and even the Prime Minister were ignored when taking decisions on allocation of spectrum in 2008.
The questionnaire from the PAC, headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi, comes in the wake of strong demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G spectrum issue, over which Parliament proceedings have been stalled for the last three weeks.
In an eight page questionnaire, PAC has questioned the Department of Telecom on why it did not adhere to Prime Minister's advice in November, 2007 to reconsider the price discovered in 2001.
"Is it justified to allocate spectrum to a few new operators in 2008 without reconsidering the old entry fee discovered in 2001 and ignoring the advice of the Prime Minister," the PAC asked.
It also asked the telecom department to calculate the presumptive loss to the exchequer on account of grant of 157 licenses without auctioning the 2G spectrum.
The government auditor CAG has quantified revenue loss to the exchequer at over Rs 1.76 lakh crore based on price discovered for 3G spectrum in an auction held earlier this year or on the basis of price offered by some operators in 2007.
The CAG has also pointed out that 85 out of 122 licenses issued in 2008 were ineligible. The PAC has questioned the process followed by the DoT for verification of applications and asked them what punitive action it proposes to take against the companies who suppressed facts to bag licenses.
Besides, the PAC has asked "how does the department propose to fix responsibility on the officers who failed to conform to the basic eligibility conditions of the companies that were granted licenses causing huge loss to the exchequer."
The PAC is also looking into the issue raised by CAG. The revelations by CAG had forced A Raja to resign as Telecom Minister last month.
Besides revenue loss to the exchequer, CAG had observed that licenses were not issued in a transparent manner as the cut-off date was advanced arbitrarily.
The PAC has sought to know what were the pressing circumstances that necessitated advancing the cut off date from October 1, 2007 to September 25, 2007.
The Parliamentary panel has asked what prevented DoT from delinking prices of spectrum from licenses and devising an efficient formula for allocation of spectrum and its appropriate pricing.
