Two top retired DoT officials to appear before PAC in 2G case

New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) Two top former officials of thethe Department of Telecom, who had claimed to have opposed themanner in which 2G spectrum licences were allocated, will beappearing before the Parliament''s Public Accounts Committee topresent their views on the issue.

D S Mathur, who retired as Telecom Secretary a few daysbefore the 2G spectrum was allocated in January 2008, andManju Madhavan, former member (Finance) in Telecom Commissionhave been asked to appear on January 21 before the PAC inconnection with the spectrum allocation irregularities,sources said.

Mathur and Madhavan, who have been called for "oralevidence", are expected to be quizzed about the developmentsthat preceded controversial allocation of 2G spectrum forwhich A Raja had to quit as Telecom Minister.

Mathur, who retired on December 31, 2007, had claimedthat Raja was determined to grant a huge number of licencesfrom the day he joined office.

He had alleged that Raja managed to advance the cut-offdate for processing the applications for licences in October2007 itself, even though it was announced only on January 10,2008, hours before the licences were granted.

Manju Madhavan, then the Member-Finance in the TelecomCommission, had sent a note recommending revision of rates atwhich the licences were being granted.

Madhavan sought voluntary retirement after proceedingon leave in 2007.

In her note, Madhavan had reportedly argued that therates should be revised as they did not reflect the currentmarket dynamics.

She had reportedly proposed three alternatives to theminister, which would have fetched the government higherrevenues. The then DoT Secretary had reportedly endorsed herviews on the file.

Former DoT Secretary Siddharth Behura and former TRAIChairperson Pradip Baijal have already appeared before theCommittee headed by BJP''s Murli Manohar Joshi.