Willing to appear before JPC as witness: Raja

Willing to appear before JPC as witness: Raja

Blamed for a number of issues inthe 2G scam, former Telecom Minister A Raja wants to appearbefore the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) as a witness totell his side of story.

Raja's request to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar comes daysafter Attorney General G E Vahanvati blamed him for variousissues before the JPC.

He has also been blamed for the 2G scam by other witnessesbefore the special CBI court.

Raja met Kumar at her office yesterday and handed over aletter expressing his willingness to appear as a witnessbefore the committee.

DMK members in JPC T R Baalu and T Siva had been pressingChairman P C Chacko to call Raja as a witness. They alsodemanded calling Vahanvati again before the panel after hetold JPC earlier this month that the controversial press noteregarding 2G licences was changed at the last minute by Rajain 2008 with a different pen.

Vahanvati was then the Solicitor General.

Chacko is apparently against calling Raja as a witness.

He has told members that as an accused has legalprotection, he cannot make fresh revelations before anycommittee. Therefore, there was no point in calling Raja.

But Chacko is yet to take a final call on the issue.

"If Raja is to be called, he will be the last witness. IfDMK agrees on not calling him, then we have concluded callingwitnesses before JPC and we would focus on writing thereport," Chacko had recently said.

Parliament sources said the Speaker cannot direct anycommittee to call a person as a witness. In this case, Kumarcan forward Raja's letter to Chacko who is currently inBangalore.

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