Behura blames government policy

NEW DELHI:  Jailed Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura followed the footsteps of his co-accused and former boss A Raja and blamed the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Finance Secre
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NEW DELHI:  Jailed Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura followed the footsteps of his co-accused and former boss A Raja and blamed the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Finance Secretary Subbarao, now RBI Governor, for not revising the entry fees for spectrum licences. He cited the non-revision of entry fee as the sole cause for the enormous revenue loss in 2 G sale.

Behura’s lawyer Aman Lekhi argued before the court of Special Judge O P Saini on Wednesday that his client could not be held responsible for implementing the government’s policy, which was already finalised even before he had joined the Department of Telecom (DoT) on January 1, 2008.

Behura alleged that the crucial decision not to revise the entry fees was finalised by his predecessor D S Mathur in consultation with Subbarao.

“Subbarao finalised the decision taken in the meeting of December 4, 2007 that the policy stood approved and the entry fees of `1,659 crore fixed in 2001 during the NDA regime need not be revised,” alleged Lekhi.

“So if he (Subbarao) is not an accused in this case, Behura, too, should not have been put on trial. But he is behind bars for the past six months,” he noted.

It was also alleged that Subbarao had, initially, recorded his objection to non-revision of entry fees but later changed his stand. “Neither Subbarao nor Mathur nor any other person from any ministry are before this court as an accused. Behura should have been made a witness and not an accused as he had no role in finalisation of any covert act relating to the spectrum allocation,” Lelhi argued.

Moreover, Lekhi said that the policy had been publicly defended by politicians. If the policy is defended and it is correct, how can a civil

servant whose job is to implement, it could be prosecuted?

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