Mumbai : Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata has said a smokescreen is being framed to shadow the reality of the 2G scam, which is about allotment of specturm.
He said the media frenzy over the leakage of tapes featuring conversations between Niira Radia, the owner of a public relations agency, and prominent politicians, industrialists and journalists as a ?smokescreen? which was deflecting attention from bigger scandals.
In an interview with the NDTV, Tata on Friday suggests the real scandal was out-of-turn allocation of spectrum and what he described as the ?hoarding? of spectrum by some telecom companies.
?There has been a smokescreen behind what is really the so-called scam, which really is out-of-turn allocation of spectrum, hoarding of spectrum by important players for free, and things of this nature,? Tata said.
Niira Radia, whose agency handles public relations for the Tata Group and Reliance Industries, has been questioned by the government agencies that are probing her alleged role in the award of a number of telecom licences in 2008.
The government?s chief auditor has said that these licences cost the exchequer Rs 1,76,000 crore because they were sold at prices set in 2001.
A Raja, who was the telecom minister when the permits were issued, was forced to step down earlier this month.
Speaking for the first time after the scam exposed, Tata said the government should “stop this sort of banana republic kind of attacks on whoever one chooses to attack on an unsubstantiated basis.
” Every person has a right to be considered innocent until found guilty in a court of law”, he said.
He suggested that the the government should not misuse its phone-tapping powers.