“Telenor buying a stake in Unitech wireless and Etisalat buying a stake in DB Realty – the finance minister approved it in the presence of the prime minister. Let the PM deny it,” Raja told special CBI Judge OP Saini.
Raja, who is in jail for alleged scam in 2 G allocation said the foreign direct investment (FDI) made in the scam were under the scanner of finance minister and the prime minister.
Senior advocate Sushil Kumar, appearing for Raja, said if Raja is being prosecuted for following a certain policy then all Telecom ministers since 1993 are liable to be prosecuted as they too followed the same policy.
“If policy pursued by me was wrong, then all former telecom ministers since 1993 should also be in jail with me (Raja),” the counsel said while opposing framing of charges against Raja.
He said, “As telecom minster Arun Shourie distributed 26 licences while Dayanidhi Maran distributed 25 and I (Raja) distributed 122 licences. Numbers make no difference, however, it is to be noted that none of them auctioned the spectrum.
“It was my obligation to social justice that every man on the street should have a mobile phone. I am a servant of my people and I made the call rates of mobile phone so cheap that even a ‘rickshaw wala’ or a maid servant can be seen using it,” Raja said.
The CBI Saturday concluded its arguments on the framing of charges in the 2G phone spectrum case. Fourteen accused and three companies are charged with causing a loss of Rs30,984 crore to the exchequer by selling the scarce resource, also called radio frequency that helps carry telecom signals, to private players cheap.