Chidambaram, Raja discussed 2G spectrum pricing: Swamy

Chidambaram, Raja discussed 2G spectrum pricing: Swamy

Releasing a set of documents on Tuesday, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy has alleged that Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, as the then Finance Minister, had discussed with the former Telecom Minister A Raja in May-June 2008 the issue of pricing the 2G spectrum at 2001 rates.

“I am releasing these documents to demolish any argument that meeting between Chidambaram and Raja did not take place. There is no ambiguity,” said Swamy, who is a petitioner in the 2G spectrum case. He recently sought making Chidambaram a co-accused in the case.

The documents he has released to the media at a Press conference here is dated July 4, 2008 that claimed that the two Ministers not only agreed upon the pricing of 2G spectrum together, but also discussed the spectrum usage charge and pricing for 3G bandwidth. Raja, now in Tihar Jail since his arrest in February on the spectrum scam had distributed the 2G licences in January that year.

“It has been agreed that the base price of 2G spectrum shall be determined by taking the entry fee of `1,650 crore determined in 2003-04 for pan-India operation of UASL licensees as a price of spectrum for 6.2 MHz of bandwidth for GSM operators,” according to the document, which, Swamy said was adopted by the NDA Government in 2001.

Swamy further contended that the document makes it clear that there was an agreement between Chidambaram and Raja on the pricing. Opining that Chidambaram should resign, Swamy said that he would file the document as evidence in the court on December 3 when the case came up for hearing.