The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum scam Wednesday began examining the telecom policy pursued during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule as it sought to know the quantum of losses incurred during that period and decided to summon the then Attorney General Soli Sorabjee in this connection.

At its second meeting since being set up in February, the JPC headed by Congress leader P C Chacko went into matters related to the telecom policy, allocation of spectrum and its pricing between 1998 and 2008.

Indian Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar, who appeared before the 30-member Committee, gave a detailed briefing on the issue tracing the history of the present telecom policy.

Several members raised pointed questions on the changes in telecom policy in the NDA rule that allowed operators to migrate from fixed license fee regime to the revenue sharing model.

Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Chacko said the Comptroller and Auditor General report of 2000 clearly stated that the change in policy had caused a "huge loss" to the exchequer.

The CAG had then expressed its inability to quantify the losses and details of the license fees and concession offered to operators in the wake of migration policy were not available, he said.

"Since the figures are available now, the Committee has directed the Telecom Secretary to quantify the losses," Chacko said.
Noting that the Cabinet decision of July 6, 1999 to change the policy was based on the advise of the then Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, the Committee has decided to call him as a witness.

In reply to a question, Chacko said technically there was no bar on calling Committee members as witnesses. He was referring to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh, who are members of the JPC and were part of the NDA Cabinet in 1999 when the decision was taken.

"So far we have not felt the need to call cabinet ministers," he said. .
Sorabjee said he has so far not received any notice or communication from the JPC and if the committee wants any information or explanation from him, he will "certainly cooperate".

Asked if the committee members from opposition parties took objection to the JPC probe into the policy shift during the NDA regime, Chacko said, "There was no division on political lines. Everybody shared the concern on the losses."

Different opinions were expressed on how the government had arrived at the decision.

Sources said Congress member Manish Tewari and CPI(M) member Gurudas Dasgupta were vocal when the presentations on the telecom policy from 1998-2001 were made by officials of the Department of Telecom.

Asked whether the JPC would take into consideration the 'report' of the Public Accounts Committee, Chacko said, "We do not know yet whether there is any official report of the PAC."

On whether the JPC would call for evidence gathered by the PAC, he said, "We have collected much more information than any other committee has collected. We are self sufficient. If there is need we can ask for more documents to be provided to us immediately.

Chacko sidestepped questions on whether he would ask former telecom minister A Raja to appear before the JPC and said he would go by what the members recommend.

Asked whether some members have already recommended Raja as a witness, he said he was yet to go through the long list.

"We will inform members well in advance before calling any witness as we don't want to surprise them," he said.

At the outset, Chacko informed the Committee of Speaker Meira Kumar's ruling with regard to the continuance of BJP members Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh in the JPC.

He said the Speaker had ruled that since there was no objection to the nomination of Singh and Sinha when the resolution to constitute the JPC was passed by Parliament, and their background was in public knowledge the question of objection does not arise.

Some members had questioned the presence of the two BJP leaders on the JPC contending that both were the then Union Cabinet ministers and part of decision-making process in telecom sector between 1998-2008.

Tewari had offered to recuse from the Committee stating that he had represented telecom companies in courts between 2001 and 2004.

Quoting rules, Chacko said since no member objected to Tewari representing telecom companies, the matter stood "closed".

On the issue of JPC and PAC holding similar probes, the Speaker has already ruled that the two panels should work in close cooperation and harmony with each other.