'All Radia tapes should be made public'

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Supreme Court was on Tuesday told that the transcripts of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's telephonic conversations relating to the 2G spectrum allocation scandal should not be held back from the public gaze as the people had a right to know how officials were functioning.

"People have a right to know what the public officials were doing," senior counsel Prashant Bhushan told an apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly.

Bhushan, who appeared in the apex court for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, told the court that the intercepts were a telling commentary on how things were done in the government.

"I have just filed 104 conversations," Bhushan said, adding that there was an attempt that transcripts of 5,851 intercepts do not see the light of the day.

He said that people have a right to know about every transaction and conversation in the spectrum scandal.

Earleir Ratan Tata had moved Supreme Court against publication of these tapes, which also had allegedly involved some senior journalists.

The senior counsel told the court that these tapes revealed how corporate lobbyist Radia had access to nearly every bureaucrat and could get any information.

Bhushan said she was trying to manipulate the proceedings of parliament so that a particular corporate house could benefit to the tune of Rs.81,000 crore in tax concessions.

The court said: "In a way, you are trying to say that she is virtually controlling the parliamentary proceedings."

When Bhushan described Radia as a 'wheeler dealer', the court observed: "According to her she is a consultant and according to you she is wheeler dealer."