The PAC will quiz Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani, Etisalat DB Telecom CEO Atul Jhamb, S-Tel CEO Shamik Das and Unitech Wireless Managing Director Sigve Brekke on Tuesday.
Last week, CBI has filed its first chargesheet in the case against Former Telecom Minister A Raja and eight others. Raja is in jail for alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum licenses. A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), chaired by Congress leader P C Chacko, has also been set up to look into all the details of the 2G spectrum allocation from 1998 to 2008.
Ms. Radia, whose tapped phone conversations with politicians, corporate, bureaucrats, and journalists form a key part of the investigations into the 2G spectrum scam, is supposed to have told the Committee that some of the tapes of her purported talks were doctored. However PAC member were not satisfied with her replies.
Talking to media PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi said ” Niira Radia was not putting facts clearly. She was not in a mood to place facts before the committee. When asked about the tapes, at first she dilly-dallied and was evasive,”.
Radia’s initial responses to questions about the tape were that “I cannot say this is correct”, “I have not heard this tape”, “I don’t remember”, “I do not know” and the like.
The PAC then informed Radia that she is here as a witness, several tapes are already on the website and she has already accepted before the CBI some of the conversations in the tapes.
“When she said she had heard some of the tapes, we said you give us the list of these tapes,” Joshi said.
Radia also accepted that she had talked to senior journalists, politicians and industrialists “and a whole lot of other people” but contended that she was “too small a person to influence cabinet formation”.
Joshi, however, expressed satisfaction at the presentation made by Tata. “I must say Ratan Tata was very candid. He answered clearly and very openly. He informed the committee that he was apprehensive about facing it. But his was a professional discussion,” Joshi said.
Tata accepted that the voice in the tapes was his. Asked by the PAC about a letter written by him to DMK Chief K Karunanidhi, Tata replied in the affirmative. Joshi said wherever Tata was not sure of something, he promised to get back to the committee in a day or two.
Joshi said the committee would probe all aspects of 2G scam. He said the committee will look into the 2G scam in its totality.