NEW DELHI: Former telecom minister A Raja is set to apply for bail for the first time and plans to argue his own case, a person close to him told ET. Raja, who is a qualified lawyer, is learnt to have told his legal team that he wants to defend himself and use the 18 letters exchanged between him and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to convince the court that his actions had approval from the highest level, this person said.
The former minister's legal team will take a final call on whether he should argue his own case, the person quoted above added. Raja resigned in November 2010 after the country's chief auditor in its report said his actions caused losses of up to Rs 177,000 crore to the government, and was subsequently arrested this February.
He will soon move the special CBI court hearing the case for bail, the person said. The CBI special court set up to hear the case on a dayto-day basis has been unyielding in its rejection of the bail applications from the others accused. Raja is yet to apply for bail.
Raja may also present documents indicating that senior ministers such as P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee had been consulted on the telecom policy to buttress his claim that the cabinet was in the loop. The former telecom minister has been charged with conspiring with department officials and corporate executives to grant licences and airwaves to companies that the Central Bureau of Investigation claims were ineligible.
The investigating agency has also charged Raja with 'criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct' for changing the cut-off date to ensure only select companies got mobile permits.
It has also accused the former minister of tweaking the policy called firstcome-first-served to that of first-come-first-paid that stipulated companies paying licence fees first would be placed higher up in the queue for mobile permits and airwaves. The earlier arrangement was those who applied first had priority.
Raja's likely stance: PM didn't object
According to the person quoted earlier, a total of 18 letters were exchanged between Raja and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G issue between August 2007 and July 2010, and these have also been submitted to the joint parliamentary committee probing the case.
Raja is likely to argue that he had sent three separate letters to the PM detailing the telecom department's plans to interpret the existing telecom policy differently, and also to change the cut-off date for applications to September 25, 2007, from October 1 prior to awarding new permits. In his December 26, 2007, communication, he also informed the PM that he had held 'discussions with the external affairs minister and solicitor general of India' and was going ahead with issuing licences to new companies.
To all these letters, the PM's response was only an acknowledgement that he had received these communications. Raja's likely stance is that the PM did not raise any objections to his policy tweaks.
It is far from clear if Raja's arguments will cut any ice, either while arguing for bail or at the trial stage. The core of the CBI's charges is that the former minister indulged in criminal misconduct at the behest of some companies, so that the latter could gain access to precious airwaves at below-market prices. The broad policy-which was to allocate spectrum without an auction-may have the sanction of the government as a whole, but it may be stretch to say that specific misdemeanors cited by the CBI in its two charge sheets had cabinet backing, legal observers say.
Nonetheless, the contours of Raja's case-the argument that the cabinet knew it all-is increasingly becoming clear, according to people with the incarcerated minister's legal strategy.
