2G scam: Justice Shivraj Patil report points to ?successive? govts lapses

The Justice Shivraj Patil committee that probed into the procedural lapses leading to the 2G Spectrum scam has identified procedurally lapses by successive governments since 2003.

The present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as well as its predecessor Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) cannot claim total innocence in the scam, the committee?s findings indicate.

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal, unveiling the report in Friday after it was submitted to him earlier this week said the findings are being sent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is looking into criminal culpability in the scam.

CBI has already arrested former Telecom minister A Raja (an MP of UPA?s ally DMK) in connection with the scam.

Tactfully supporting Raja?s claim that he was merely following the procedures laid by the previous government, Sibal said, ?Raja has said that he was not deviating from the previous policies (the NDA government) but the problem was that the previous policies were wrong.?

The Justice Patil report said that the original spectrum allocation was ?bad? and procedures were not followed both during the NDA government till 2004 and the UPA government up to 2008.

It also blamed the the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for not following the advice of the Law Ministry or the views of the Finance Ministry over pricing of spectrum.

A Comptroller and Auditor General report has estimated that the exchequer lost Rs 1.76 lakh crore due to wrong allotment of 2G Spectrum.