22/09/2011
Pranab refuses to comment on letter blaming Chidambaram for 2G mes
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday refused to comment on a letter sent by his ministry to prime minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G spectrum scam, saying he cannot make any remark on the matter as it is subjudice.
"The matter is subjudice. I cannot make any comment on it. The whole matter is under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court of India. We cannot make any comment on any matter that is subjudice," Mukherjee, who is New York to attend an India-US investor forum said.
Separately, while addressing Indian and American business leaders at a high-profile USIBC roundtable, Mukherjee said the finance ministry letter to the prime minister's secretariat is out in the open only due to the Right to Information Act, which is one of the many steps the government has taken to flush out corruption and make governance transparent and accountable.
He said in the recent years, lot of authority has been given to the people of India through the RTI. "In fact today a sensational news item has come and it is through the exercise of the RTI. A note was sent by minister of finance to prime minister. Somebody demanded through the use of RTI to have the copy of that note from the prime minister's secretariat and... fact of the matter is somebody has produced that as a piece of evidence in a particular case," Mukherjee commented.
He said whether the letter can be used in such a manner or not is a different story. A finance ministry document submitted to the Supreme Court says the telecom ministry could have gone in for auction of 2G spectrum licenses had the then finance minister P Chidambaram insisted on this.
