On “swallow-and-vomit journalismâ€, 2G Scam, BJP, courtesy Arun Shourie
I usually avoid posting large sections of articles, interviews etc as “excerpts” but I am making an exception for this one…I stumbled on this interview of Sh Arun Shourie an hour ago – and am putting these excerpts up, given the nature of its contents…Please read on – and please share widely…All is not well, All is desperately not well… More on this when I have some time to gather my thoughts…In the meantime, I am grieving for the country.
*** Excerpts from Karan Thapar’s interview with Arun Shourie ***
Karan Thapar: Mr Shourie, wittingly or unwittingly, did you as telecommunications minister facilitate A Raja’s scam?
Arun Shourie: That is absolute bunk. The dates are changed. Monies are collected. The priority lists are changed. This is facilitated by anything that anyone of us did?
Karan Thapar: So this is not just a lie, this is tantamount to libel?
Arun Shourie: It is. Absolutely.
Karan Thapar: Okay! Let’s come to the details so that you can respond fully. Justice Patil’s report suggests that as telecommunications minister you not only ignored, but you contravened a specific Cabinet decision of the Vajpayee government taken on October 31, 2003 which in turn endorsed a TRAI recommendation that all new entrants into 2G should by the multi-stage bidding process. Instead, you opted for ‘first come, first serve’.
Arun Shourie: No, no my friend. You’re right. The Cabinet decision is to go according to the recommendations of TRAI. And the TRAI recommendations, I have the report here and it’s called ‘Recommendations on Unified Licensing’. All your viewers can go to the website of TRAI now and look at this report for under the entry for October 2003 and in the paragraphs they will see TRAI considered three alternatives. First one was bidding and they rejected it. They said don’t do bidding at this stage and in this period till a universal licensing system is introduced which has not been introduced till this day.
…Karan Thapar: So the third recommendation and I am spelling this out for the audience was that you stick to the old pricing?
Arun Shourie: To the pricing as discovered by multi-stage bidding for the fourth cellular licence.
Karan Thapar: Which means you stick to the process that had been established already.
Arun Shourie: Not only the process but the figure which has been established.
Karan Thapar: And this is precisely what the Vajpayee government on October 31, 2003 endorsed?
Arun Shourie: Absolutely. Endorsed in their decision and they said the department with the approval of the minister shall work out the details of this implementation including the pricing.
Karan Thapar: Now, the Shivraj Patil report says that within something like three weeks of the Vajpayee government endorsing the TRAI recommendations, first on November 17 and then again on November 24 you approved the formulation of procedure for grant of UASLs on the basis of ‘first come, first serve’ as against multi-bidding. Do you deny that?
Arun Shourie: Deny? That is an absolute fabrication. This fellow Patil, he is a hand-picked judge. He gives a report convenient to the government and what does it do? It absolutely suppresses. Either he has not been given the documents. He decided I will not meet anybody who was dealing with the matter at that time. He will confine himself to the documents given to him by Kapil Sibal’s little minions. And he gives this kind of nonsense.
Karan Thapar: Just to clarify, you’re saying either he didn’t have full information or saying Justice Patil suppressed details that he had?
Arun Shourie: Absolutely. Because the record is so clear.
Karan Thapar: You’re sure you’re not in the process of criticising Patil, libeling him?
Arun Shourie: So what. If he wants to go to the court he can go just now. What is the problem?
Karan Thapar: You are quite happy for him to go to the court and sue you?
Arun Shourie: Any day, any day. All the officers will be confronting him.
Karan Thapar: A second revelation made by the ‘Hindustan Times’ on the basis of leaks made to that paper is that you, or your officials, concocted with Pradeep Baijal (then TRAI chairman) a letter written on the November 11, just two weeks or so after the TRAI recommendations, where Baijal so interpreted the TRAI recommendations as to eliminate multi-stage bidding and to facilitate ‘first come, first serve’.
Arun Shourie: On the contrary man that is damn problem with everybody including the media. Why don’t you look at the letter? The letter of Baijal. I can give it you just now. You can get your officers to do this. The letter of Baijal is in response to our query that we have now been asked to implement your decision and there are three things to be done. What about pending applications, what about existing migration applications and new applications? He reproduces the paragraphs exactly – 7.18, 7.19 etc from TRAI and says that’s our recommendation. After that TRAI in four different communications, TRAI as a whole, not only endorses but reiterates that recommendation.
Karan Thapar: So just to confirm, you’re saying to me that the claim or the assertion that Baijal reinterpreted TRAI to suit your purposes and to be different from something what TRAI originally suggested, that assertion is again a lie.
Arun Shourie: Absolute lie Karan. Here is the letter if your camera can show it. Baijal letter merely reproduces what the TRAI had said. It literally reproduces the paragraphs of TRAI. It says look at that. That is our recommendation.
Karan Thapar: What about something else? The ‘Hindustan Times’ in its front-page cover story on November 9 suggests that the letter Baijal wrote on November 11, 2003 was as a result of a private conversation between Vinod Vaish, your secretary at DoT (Department of Telecommunications) and Baijal. In another words, you or your officials connived with Baijal to get the letter written.
Arun Shourie: This is the swallow-and-vomit journalism of people like ‘Hindustan Times’. What do you mean? We are the Ministry of Telecommunications man, we can’t use a telephone? I worked for five years in government. There is not a single occasion when I would have sought anybody’s advice by writing or by writing to him. I’ll ring him up. I’ll walk up to the officer’s room and I’ll say look here, I need this information. Please get it from me.
…Karan Thapar: Would you consider taking the ‘Hindustan Times’ to court for libel?
Arun Shourie: No, why should we? Who believes these characters, man? This is swallow-and-vomit journalism, I’m telling you. Let them take me to the court. I’m saying this is swallow-and-vomit journalism.
…Karan Thapar: Let me repeat the wider accusation against you. The accusation is this that you wrongly established the ‘first come, first serve’ policy in defiance of TRAI, in contravention of your own Cabinet’s decision and thus set a precedent that A Raja followed. In other words, if you hadn’t acted the way you did. Raja could not have taken the steps that he took and the Raja scam would have never happened.
Arun Shourie: Raja, my friend, you know even in following procedures these fellows can make money so don’t worry. But the point here is on the ‘first come, first serve’ principle. It is a principle much older than me for the allotment of spectrum and there is a statutory obligation in the licence condition alone that first you will get 4.4.MHz of spectrum. When your subscriber base increases to such and such level, you will get the extra amount by paying the specified fee.
…Karan Thapar: Kapil Sibal has said that the Shivraj Patil report will be given to the CBI to assess criminal culpability. Are you worried that you could end up facing criminal charges?
Arun Shourie: What nonsense, man! I rang up the director of the CBI as soon as he took over saying whenever you want me I will come. Just give me a little notice. Not only this. Day before yesterday when I was coming to Delhi, I was at the Bombay airport, I was told by my house that there has been a call from the CBI SP and he wants to contact you and we have given your numbers to him. I said no problem. In 45 minutes I had to board the flight. I rang him up and he said sir when are you next coming to Delhi. I said I am just boarding the flight now. It will land at 5:10. I will come straight to your office at 6 and because I don’t need any lawyers or documents I will come to you. He said I’ll just get back to you in two minutes after contacting my seniors. And then he said sir we realise that we have a meeting with out council today because tomorrow is February 10 and we have to appear in the Supreme Court, therefore when can we meet again. I’m telling your viewers, I’m telling you we have fixed the date for February 21. You are all welcome to come.
…Karan Thapar: I gather that as far back as August-September 2009 you met the Prime Minister in Parliament, you gave him details of the enormous loot happening over spectrum under Raja. You also showed him papers as proof. Tell me what exactly happened at that meeting.
Arun Shourie: Actually it was the Prime Minister’s question day and then he would take a particular route outside so I stood in the path that he usually takes from the lobby of the Rajya Sabha. I had the papers with me listing the front companies of Raja into which the money was going, the appointments that had been made, the brokers that are there and I said to him in Punjabi, “Dr Singh, loot is happening under the umbrella of your good name.” His demeanour was as if he was saying what has to be done. I said, “Nothing much. You just request Nair (Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office TKA Nair) to contact me.”
…Karan Thapar: Did Nair call you?
Arun Shourie: No. I waited for one full month. Then in October 2009 I contacted Mr Ashwini Kumar who was then the CBI director. I gave him the papers, led him through the papers, gave him the name and the telephone number and the contact and the person through whom he could contact the person who knows everything and who was working with Raja.
Karan Thapar: This is a sort of a whistleblower.
Arun Shourie: The whistleblower. The hero of the whole matter who has been receiving threats to his life.
Karan Thapar: So you gave the name and the phone number of the whistleblower rot the CBI director.
Arun Shourie: The CBI then contacted him in the first week of November 2009 and met him again and again and again. And when they had all the details and they followed those things up, the investigative officer was transferred out.
Karan Thapar: So can I just clarify two things? It was your meeting with the CBI director in November 2009 and your introducing the whistleblower to the CBI that actually gave the CBI the details and the knowledge and the information that led to the case against Raja.
Arun Shourie: No I am nobody. I don’t want to be a hero or anything. Yes, that person is the real hero who has done national service.
Karan Thapar: The whistleblower?
Arun Shourie: Yes.
Karan Thapar: Can you reveal his name or is that impossible?
Arun Shourie: No. You can’t imagine the threats under which he is living today.
Karan Thapar: Just one question. He must be, I presume, a government servant and an insider who knows the details.
…Karan Thapar: But this also means that if you hadn’t voluntarily gone to the CBI, the CBI would never have got to know the story?
Arun Shourie: I don’t know my friend. It’s not only that. It is that when the CBI got to know the story and confirmed each and every detail, they did not proceed with the matter.
Image courtesy: Horasis via Wikipedia
Karan Thapar: What stopped the CBI from proceeding in the matter?
Arun Shourie: I think they regard themselves as a department of the government and therefore, they were waiting for a nod to go ahead. It is only when the Supreme Court has intervened and is monitoring the investigation that the CBI is protected and is proceeding under.
…Karan Thapar: Let me put this to you. All of this happened 15 months ago. Why haven’t you revealed it earlier?
Arun Shourie: The CBI was stuck. What should I have gone ahead with?
Karan Thapar: If the CBI was stuck, you could have forced them to reveal this earlier.
Arun Shourie: No Karan, I’m not into this at all now. But for Kapil Sibal’s falsehood, I would never have bothered to go with it.
Karan Thapar: But, you had personally, details and proofs of Raja’s loot. Secondly, you had made this known to the Prime Minister and he hadn’t acted. Surely, it was in the national interest to tell the country that I’ve informed the Prime Minister for 15 months, he’s done nothing and even the CBI isn’t active.
Arun Shourie: I have to be in Delhi for various reasons.
Karan Thapar: That’s easily done. You are often in Delhi
Arun Shourie: I’m not often in Delhi. This is the second time I’ve come to Delhi in one year. There is no doubt that I could reveal it, but I don’t have that anger now in me to pursue these things. I’m attending to other matters at home and that’s what I’m doing.
Karan Thapar: What about this? For at least a year, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley have been accusing not only the Prime Minister of a cover-up but even suggesting a possibility of involvement. You had proof that at least of cover-up the PM can be accused and you didn’t make the proof available.
Arun Shourie: The BJP knows what I knew.
Karan Thapar: The BJP knows what you knew? Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley know this?
Arun Shourie: I don’t want to talk about BJP’s internal meeting but it is certainly my assessment that they were not interested in following these things.
Karan Thapar: Even the BJP wasn’t interested?
Arun Shourie: No.
Karan Thapar: The BJP had dynamite and they weren’t interested in following it up?
Arun Shourie: That’s true. That’s unfortunately true. It is only the AIADMK MPs who were following this up.
Karan Thapar: Your own party had dynamite and they weren’t interested in following it up?
Arun Shourie: I’m not going to make it a BJP v/s Arun Shourie business. But it is evident. And many of these people have had these very chaps as their clients, both on Kapil Sibal’s side and other sides.
*** End of Excerpts ***
Related Posts: As more skeltons keep tumbling out of the cupboard…
Somewhat Related: Question of the Week: Where are the BJP’s poll strategists? and Karan Thapar’s interview with Pramod Mahajan
I have no doubt whatsoever about Arun Shourie’s integrity.The UPA, of course, had none and will never have any integrity in future either.
The reluctance of the BJP is because they have been out of power for a long time now and could be reluctant to rock the boat; but the JPC appears to be about to be granted by this pathetic government. If the JPC is constituted, a major battle should have been won.
The desperation of the UPA resulted in many websites being blocked today.
There has not been any Kkkangress presence on many of the News channeld for some time. You give a 3rd rate party a long rope and they will definitely hang themselves with it!
Hope this govt falls early!
They harassed Shourie on divestment and they are now trying to point fingers towards him in the telecom case. They can do that because if the deep divisions in the Indian society. Just examine the titles of the books Shourie has written and you can guess the number and the identity of groups and people who will be happy to put down Shourie anytime there is any possibility.
These days, what you say has little importance. People jump to tag you castewise, partywise, loyaltywise (Gandhidas and all that) and so on and so forth and decide whether you are right or wrong simply based on the label they devised for you. Sad, but true.
Egypt seems like a far better society than India at the moment.
@seadog,
One thing CONgress knows well: how to gain power and how to retain it. That is their core competency. Governance was always an after thought for them. The current Gandhi clan, consisting of mother and son, are the weakest bunch in the history of this clan. So the glue that binds Pranab Mukherjees of the east with Sheela Dikshits of the north is at it’s weakest. Multiple new scams are on it’s way as we speak. But the government will not fall. Not because of MMS, but because of the core competency of senior CON leaders.
Anyways, if this government fails, do not expect a better party to come up. How does it matter if Congress 1.0 or 2.0 comes in power? Look at what Shourie said:
If a strong leader like Modi or Nitish Kumar is projected as a PM, then a change of power will mean something. Else we should focus on another urgent matter:
there is no second generation leader who has guts or integrity of Swamy or Shourie. Both are old enough; what happens if they are out of the scene tomorrow?
Though the nation badly wants to believe in BJP at the moment (at least much of the youth which is interested in politics and lives in metros does) but this new info by Shouri again shows that BJP or CONgress could be two sides of the same coin. On the other hand, what seadog says about BJP being very weary of rocking the boat makes sense to me. The media and the CONgress PR machinerey delibarately tries to make the BJP guys look like jokers no matter what their position on any issue is and well somehow they succeed.
Also Sid, agree with you change is meaningful only if a headstrong leader like Modi or Nitish is to be projected as the leader (preferably Modi) otherwise it won’t matter really if one bunch of men and women who just want to hold on to power are replaced by another bunch of similar men and women.
Wow, Arun Shourie has immense patience to calmly answer all the questions of this obnoxious person. Any other mortal would’ve given some tight slaps to KT to knock some sense into him by the third question.
Just a comment on a comment “I have no doubt whatsoever about Arun Shourie’s integrity.” (seadog42217)
Sorry guys, you can carry on living in your delusions. The reality is that NO existing party is even remotely honest. These ‘honest’ people are pinups boys and girls to deceive the public. That reality is that all major parties operate PURELY through corruption and black money.
They have mastered the art of putting people like MMS/Shourie in front so people think these are clean parties. IF these people were clean they would NEVER join such parties.
You, the ‘educated’ Indian, are being taken for a BIG ride. Carry on being deceived.
S.
“You, the ‘educated’ Indian, are being taken for a BIG ride. Carry on being deceived.”
Come, let us all get outta Indyeah !!!
Sanjeev, in other words, you and your Freedom party are our only and last hope, correct? Everyone else is corrupt and compromised.
If Mr. Arun Shourie could please clarify on the Centaur (Mumbai) Hotel sale as well as BALCO sale. Both are alleged to be under priced.
In addition to the crooked natural talent of CONgis to come back strongly and stick to power 4 dat 5 yrs, the role of ELM and the inter-linked Corporate Lobby has become very strong in having this Govt inevitably upto 2013 or even longer.
Unfortunately BJP too has got entangled in this complex web of deceit.
What people like Sanjeev have to understand is that sometimes a choice between two or more evils is necessary and at this point in time (which I am measuring in decades) BJP is definitely is a lesser evil than CONgress. The third front parties are jokers who have regressive agendas and are rightly out of consideration
Arun Shorie seems like a Whistle Blower, whose whistle sound was buried under the roof of Corrupt Congress, whose target was to Plunder the Nation. Before a year no one would have believed him, provided PM substantive proof about the scam. But after the new -ISRO-DEVAS S B scam expose and the GUFF UP from PMO office, Arun stands credible. Now, that the investigation is on right track, we hope one day it would come out Is 2g scam about Policy defects or who LOOTED the country how much under-table?
Karan Thapar should quit interviewing and join the villains club in Bollywood. He is really fit to fill in the gaps in Bollywood villainy.
Now that corruption has become unbearable, Kongies will bring up Rahul baby and present him as the next leader who will clean up everything. And gullible Indians will vote for Rahul baby. That is exactly what is going to happen here.
India is no Egypt. India is full of vain and pompous middle class people, snooty looty upper class people, and a lower class that is ignorant or too feeble to resist. There is no nation any more but a hundred fragments, divided along community lines, linguistic lines, religious lines, ideological lines, and whatever else is there to divide man against man.
@Anup Dubey
Mr Anup, please do some research before you speak or post. You mentioned Centaur and Balco in your comment. Humans believe what they want to believe. You are a pefect example of that. UPA already did see if anything corrupt happened in the above two cases and it was disappointed not to find anything wrong. All that Mr Shourie is telling w.r.t 2G scam has been corroborated by the facts and the turn of events. Had there been any case in the two disinvestment cases, would it have not come out? Especially when CBI is a political tool to dig out things against political rivals.
I smell something fishy about this whole scam. It seems that there is a bigger hole then what it seems or projected.
Sanjeev’s note seems correct. The ‘educated’ Indian, are being taken for a BIG ride.
It seems that everybody, I mean everybody, including the very common citizen, is involved in these type of scams. That is the reason why nobody want to shake, forget shaking, even want to touch the brick. Somewhere deep within the heart every educated Indian knows that this will fall upon them and they will get buried underneath.
I see no hope unless the very educated Indian, every one, takes the responsibility of this mess and gather for a big cleanup, revamp the entire governance.
||namO Bhaartam, namO Sanskritam||
Shantanu – it is our tragedy that Arun Shourie has lost that anger :(. If he is able to bring out so many facts without his anger, just imagine how UPA must have been sweating if the anger was still there.
Blood boils on listening to Karan Thapar question why Shourie kept quiet for 15 months and did not act in “national interest”. This same English language media kept quiet when Gopikishan was exposing the 2G scam. Where did their famed “national interest” go then? Hypocrites all these people!
Loud mouthed Kapil Sibal blurts out nonsense and these people pick it up like it’s a sermon from Bhagavad Gita. Shourie explains clearly and yet they are never satisfied. What a shame that we have such kind of a media.
-Sudhir
congressmen r looting the nation as if they will never come to power again….this is the mentality- psychology of congress..sonia along with her family will run away as predicted by swami…and without mother figure all the congressmen will be ‘anath’-impotant….powerless,,will be unable to do anything….Bhupendra Mody
I have been a big time fan of BJP..Now after seeing all this, is Congress alone part of this vicious system? Is BJP not party to it? It seems like BJP too is filled with corrupt morons except that they are not as tall as the morons in Congress. What a shame that BJP does not use the services of a leader and patriot like Arun Shourie. They do not want him there because they probably do not want a sincere leader like Arun Shourie as part of the system as some day it might dig their skulls too. It did hurt me quite a bit to hear that he does not have the “anger” any more. Imagine the hurt and helplessness might have gone behind making that statement. Shame on this political system.
We need leaders like him to turn around this nation. The political class(Both Congress and BJP) thinks that people will be party to their political game as mute spectators. But there sure will be a day when the public anger will inundate this corrupt system.
Again… for those who’re saying after reading this that BJP is no better than CONgress and getting all dejected about it, remember this is the contingency plan/plan B of CONgress or any political party.
First they don’t want to be hit with any dirt which hurts but if they are hit and they are hurting bad then the plan is to somehow make sure that even if you are losing out, your opponents shouldn’t benefit.
So at this moment CONgress and its entire PR machinery which includes the Karan Thappars of India would settle for the “man all political parties are the same, all of them are pigs” sentiment in the people. (Maybe thats why the interview focuses so heavily on certain parts more than others. Who knows?)
When the dust settles after a few months or years they then appeal to you that at least they are better than a party of saffron cold blooded murderers and maut ke saudagars so they are the lesser of the two evils and you should chose them.
Please don’t fall for this… India must not fall for such tactics now, its hight time. If some quirky anxieties and insecurities of BJP/NDA go (they definitely will if they get just 2 terms in office as compared to CONgress’s 40+ years), they will be a much more decisive party which is always in favor of positive policies which take India ahead.
India ‘s youth must get this straight if political parties are evil then so be it, our duty is to choose, without fail, the lesser evil amongst them each and every time elections happen and until CONgress’s policies change and some of their big crooks go, they will be the greater evil of our Political system and the so called Third front parties will always be… jokers
@raj,
i agree with you just because everyone is evil in the political system dont vote at all. I did not advocate it.
I agree with you that Congress indulges in PR machinations of different kind and Karnataka,… are part of that ploy…
what i am saying is forget the congress ploy. Forget what others say. Critics are the best source for course correction…Let BJP be an ideal solution rather than TINA(there is not alternative) Why did yeddyurappa who professed about probity in public life forget what he preached. why is BJP side-lining Arun Shourie who is a man of principle, man of integrity…His abilities are all known well enough..if there are people who are still respected then it is leaders like Mr Arun Shourie
inspite of what all i said if you still ask me to compare BJP and Congress I would still rate BJP the lesser evil.. You cant compare what they did in 6 yrs with what congies did in 40 years…Now the time has come where we should not settle for lesser evil… instead the lesser evil should be purgated of its evils, else we will rescue ourselves just from fire to pan…Half measures will never turn around the system…Its time for comprehensive change…
I am glad Shourie came out and attacked the UPA back. They are trying to deflect the attention from the real scam, and going after well meaning officials like Baijal and Vaish – who both deserve credit for turning around the Indian telecom sector. It grew from almost nothing to 100M subs under their watch – and a lot of the policies were forward thinking. HT really stooped low by insinuating things just because of a phone call. I loved Shourie on this “We are the communications ministry, man … we cant use a phone” … totally brilliant. Loved it. Its so sad that media can do no work but to point out stupid things like … it was a phone call.
I just read the entire Patil report – and the Judge has not even named Baijal in his report. But hey, some naive HT reporter with one letter claims Baijal is at the center of this. Totally funny. Its a shame that newspapers cannot be sued in this country. Hey, i want to sue them, and i am not even Baijal. Just for wasting my time!
The two cases discussed in comments – Yediyurappa and 2G – are incomparable. In each case, almost all agencies that are working on the case are controlled by Congress but in the yediyurappa case, the accused is not a congressman or one of their allies.
Democratic checks and balances must be in place before Yediyurappa case is taken up as a corruption case. The governor must be a consensually appointed person or, in the least, a non-congress person. At present, it looks like a political game. In most instances, everyone who is anyone in India has to resort to some extra-legal practice to get wherever he/she got. For a party that controls everything, it would not be difficult to find some legal fault with an opposition CM. In the interest of fairness, such faults should only be investigated by completely impartial entities. That is not the case in Karnataka, and for that reason, the Yediyurappa case should not be discussed in the same breath along with the 2G case.
Excellent overview, it pointed me out something I didn’t realize before. I should encourage for your wonderful work. . I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. Thank you for sharing this information with us.
<a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/2G-trail-Govt-objects-to-SC-appointed-prosecutor/articleshow/7874063.cms"Govt opposes SC appointed public prosecutor for 2G case
How low would govt steep? Shame.
Jai Bharat!
Pretty old topic, but came up when I was searching about the issue – BJP will never follow up on this issue because it was in NDA times that it started. I remember CDMA/ GSM issue came up when Pramod Mahajan was the Telecom minister.
Thankfully for BJP the two things below helped them from having an egg thrown in their faces:
1) BJP lost election during that time.
2) Pramod Mahajan expired
Had both the things not happened, it would have been BJP and Mr. Mahajan who would have been investigated – and I bet UPA would have clamoured for the case to be fasttracked.