In a major setback to the accused in the 2G scam, key witness and senior DoT official A K Srivastava on Wednesday told a local court that R K Chandolia, former private secretary to ex-telecom minister A Raja, asked him to favour Unitech.
On the second day of deposing as a CNBI witness, Srivastava told special CBI Judge O P Saini that he was instructed to stop taking new applications for 2G licences after Unitech Group submits their applications. “On September 24, 2007, when about 167 applications were received, Chandolia asked me whether Unitech Group’s applications have been received. I enquired from dealing section and replied back to him that applications of Unitech Group have not been received. He then told me that applications of the group would be submitted to DoT today and thereafter I should stop receiving further Unified Access Services Licence (UASL) applications,” he told the court.
Earlier Srivastava, in a statement to the probe agency stated that Raja had noted in a DoT file that the cut-off date for receiving applications for granting the 2G licences would be October 1, 2007.