Limited jurisdiction to delay DoT's internal enquiry

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The report of the one-man committee set up under former Supreme Court justice Shivraj V Patil for internal enquiry on the procedures followed for the allocation of wireless spectrum from 2001-2009 is likely to be delayed as there have been many instances when there had been involvement of other departments and which are not under the jurisdiction of this committee.

“The period of a month for enquiry is very short. There are many documents that are not in the DoT related to spectrum allocation. Most of the documents of the recent 2G spectrum allocation to the new operators were seized by CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). Those are the originals that CBI took away with it. We have asked for copy of those but they have not come yet,” said a senior DoT official in an interaction with CIOL.

One-man committee not to question Raja

Another DoT official also added that the officials who have been involved in the allocation of the spectrum during this period cannot be summoned in this short time.

The one-man committee so far has only consulted with officials that are working in the DoT and in the respective departments for understanding of the various technicalities involved in allocation of the spectrum.

Though this official added that he has observed Justice Patil working for 12 to 14 hours a day, the time of four weeks is very short to conduct a detailed enquiry.

CIOL contacted a CBI spokesperson to cross-check the status of the communication from the DoT for documents and its status, but no clarification from CBI was received till the time this report was being filed.

When CIOL contacted Justice Patil to ask about the obstacle being posed by his limited jurisdiction, the former Supreme Court justice refused to comment on the subject.

“I cannot discuss anything on this subject,” said Patil.

According to official sources close to the working of this committee, the committee has been busy in studying documents that are available with the DoT and there are some old documents that the department is finding difficult in collecting.

“Justice Patil is going through every minute detail and in the process there are many documents that we are finding very difficult to locate.  For years there have been no proper place to store the documents and he (Justice Patil) has asked for some details that even go back to 1952 when the Wireless Planning Commission was formed,” said a DoT official who did not want to be named.

To come up with an error-free report in four weeks, when most of the documents are not with the DoT, and the limited jurisdiction is going to be a big challenge for Justice Patil.

This one-man committee was set-up by Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for IT and Communications and Justice Patil assumed its charge on December 13, 2010. The last day of the working of this committee as per the announcement and schedule is January 12, 2011.