CPI-M seeks action against defaulting firms

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Sunday called for action against companies which had acquired 2G spectrum by "illegal means" and said that the licences of companies which had not fulfilled their rollout obligations should be annullez

In a statement released at the end of three-day meeting of its central committee here, the party demanded a fresh auction to recoup the losses that had occurred during the 2G spectrum allocation.

It said the 2G spectrum scam was a prime example of "the big business-politician-bureaucrat nexus which has now become the hallmark of the neo-liberal regime".

"The key issue is to bring to book all those who are involved in wrongdoing. The former minister, the guilty officials and the corporates who have suborned them. The first step in fact should be to cancel the licences of all those companies who have acquired it by illegal means. Further, as the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has pointed out, the licences of those companies who did not fulfill the rollout obligations should also be annulled. Fresh auction should be held to raise the revenue to recoup the losses," the statement said.

It said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government will be judged on how they accomplish this.

Accusing the prime minister of preferring to overlook corruption so that his government can survive, the CPI-M said that the ruling dispensation was not acknowledging the responsibility for the "gigantic fraud" in the 2G spectrum allocation and was refusing to constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the whole affair.

It said the country has been rocked by the startling exposures of high-level corruption in recent times - the 2G spectrum scam, the Commonwealth Games scandal, the Adarsh housing fraud and the rampant corruption of the B.S. Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka.

The CPI-M said that it had, as early as February 2008, brought to the attention of the country to the "blatantly illegal manner" in which allocation of 2G spectrum and licences were made, causing a huge loss to the exchequer.

"The role of the (then) union minister A.Raja was also clear. Yet, the Congress-led government refused to act. The prime minister preferred to overlook such massive corruption so that his government could manage to survive. After the Lok Sabha election, in the second tenure of the UPA government, the same approach continued."

The Comptroller and Auditor General has indicted Raja and said his policies had caused a loss of Rs.58,000 crore ($12.8 billion) to Rs.1.76 lakh crore ($40 billion) to the exchequer.

Raja resigned last Sunday.