[Assunkkensatt]

In a new twist to the 2G scam, the Supreme Court on Wednesday took on record a communication sent by the finance ministry to the PMO in March 2011 stating that in January 2008, P. Chidambaram, then finance minister, and A. Raja, communications minister, had decided not to “revisit” the spectrum price.

A bench of Justices G.S.Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, now monitoring the probe into the 2G scam, allowed Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy to place the document on record along with the minutes of the January 30 meeting between Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja, at which the decision to fix the spectrum price at the base Rs.1,650 crore entry fee was taken.

Meanwhile, the top court also took serious view of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) sending a communication to the CBI stating that there was virtually no loss in the sale of 2G spectrum while questioning the probe agency’s estimation of much lower loss to the exchequer when CAG had put it at whooping Rs.1.74 lakh crores.
Earlier, the court had allowed Dr Swamy to place the documents on record as part of his petition seeking a direction to the CBI to investigate Mr Chidambaram’s role in “fixing” the 2G price at a much lower level.

The March 25, 2011, note of the finance ministry under Mr Pranab Mukherjee to the PMO titled as “Chronology of basic facts related to pricing and allocation of 2G spectrum” said that “in a meeting held on January 30, 2008 between then ministers of finance and communications, it was noted by the then finance minister that he was for now not seeking to revisit the current regimes for entry fee or revenue share.” The minutes of the January 30, 2008, meeting were also annexed with the note signed by P.G.S. Rao, deputy director in the infrastructure and investment division of the finance ministry’s department of economic affairs.