Former telecom minister Arun Shourie told the Indian Express that he had apprised prime minister Manmohan Singh of the nature and scale of the 2G scam after he realised its enormity and alerted the then CBI director as well.

Shourie said that he had even introduced the probe agency to a key informant, who knew specific details of bribery in the scam.

He said that this happened towards the middle and end of 2009.

According to the key opposition figure, the prime minister and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had summoned the then Trai chief Nripendra Mishra who had told them that A Raja (then telecom minister) was wrong in saying that he had gone by the telecom regulatory body's recommendations.

Shourie said that he had been approached by an informant who armed him with details of each graft, alongwith the names of companies who had received undue munificence from the ministry.

He then met the PM with details sometime in August-September 2009 and showed him the details in the Rajya Sabha corridor, requesting a meeting with the latter's principal secretary T K A Nair. When there was no response from the PMO, he met the then CBI director Ashwini Kumar.

He was informed by the agency that it could not act against Raja until it had clearance from the PMO.

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Cong rubbishes Shourie's claims, questions credibility

Denies that there was any communication between the former telecom minister and PM on the 2G issue

Congress on Friday denied that there had been any communication from the former telecom minister Arun Shourie to either the prime minister or the PMO on the 2G scam.

"There was absolutley no kind of communication to the prime minister or his office (from Arun Shourie). It is a travesty of truth. This is a conscious attempt to mislead or misinform," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media here.

Singhvi said that Shourie's statements raise serious questions about his party's motives in the light of the recent report by the justice Shivraj Patil committee, which cleared Raja of mopst charges. Shourie had earlier accused telecom minister Kapil Sibal of trying to get his predecessor A Raja off the hook in the 2G scam and had said that the Patil committee report was light on Raja.

"Why did he go public only now? Why did he have to wait until the Patil committee report came out. This is merely an attempt to attack the PM," Singhvi said.