Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, weakened by a corruption scandal involving his sacked telecoms minister, told the Supreme Court on Saturday he had done nothing wrong and had followed correct procedures. An affidavit was presented to the Supreme Court by Singh's representative, Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati. The document said the prime minister had done "all that was required in the interest of probity". Corruption has long been a major problem in India, recognised by all political parties. The ruling Congress party has pledged to crack down on graft, but it has been put on the defensive in recent weeks when it was forced to fire three senior officials over corruption allegations, including the problem-riddled Commonwealth Games.
India was ranked 87th in Transparency International's 2010 ranking of 178 nations based on the perceived level of corruption, or almost in the middle of the index. Rival China is ranked higher, at number 78.
PM breaks silence
In his first comments since the corruption scandal blew up, Singh said in a leadership summit “It is often said these are testing times. In fact I can not help feeling that we in India are living always through testing times. Indeed as prime minister I sometimes feel like a high school student going from one test to another.”
Party rallies behind PM
Senior members of the ruling Congress party have rallied around Manmohan Singh, saying he has done nothing wrong and dismissed any rumors the prime minister was planning to resign. investigation into the sale of the second-generation telecoms licences in the world's fastest growing mobile phone market.
Accusations on Raja
Raja is accused of selling the licences too cheaply in 2007-2008, potentially costing the state up to $31 billion in lost revenues, according to an audit by an official watchdog. The process also violated several rules, the audit said. Raja, who was sacked last week, denies the accusations. Raja is a member of the DMK, a regional party from Tamil Nadu that helps give the Congress party a majority in parliament. The opposition claims Singh failed to act because he feared upsetting his coalition partner. After presenting an explanation to the Supreme Court on Saturday, Singh will on Tuesday appear in person to answer questions over how he handled the request to investigate Raja.
PM on Corruption : August 26, 2010
“There is a pervasive feeling that while petty cases get tackled quickly, the big fish escape punishment. This has to change. Rapid, fair and accurate investigation of allegations of corruption in high places should remain your utmost priority. The urgent need to combat this menace cannot be over emphasized. Corruption distorts the rule of law and weakens institutions. It hurts our economic growth in a variety of ways, apart from hindering our efforts to build a just, fair and equitable society," the prime minister had said at the biennial conference of the Central Bureau of Investigation and its anti-corruption bureau.
PM on Corruption: November 20, 2010
“We must also salute the spirit of adventure and the spirit of enterprise and the creativity of the small businessman and women, the first generation entrepreneur and the small farmer, each of whom has to deal with a difficult world environment – often including an unresponsive, inefficient and corrupt government” PM said at HT leadership summit.
Opposition blames PMO
In an affidavit before the Supreme Court on the 2G Spectrum scam, PMO said that there was no inaction on his part for allowing prosecution of former Telecom minister A Raja. The main opposition party BJP has termed this reply a conspiracy-“It is a glaring case where the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is patently involved in the conspiracy of silence, culpability of inaction and guilty of gross indifference, when nations’ wealth was being plundered by a Minister right under his nose by massive abuse of system and yet the head of the Government Dr. Manmohan Singh looked the other way,” said BJP national secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The affidavit claimed that the PM was examining the matter in consultation with several wings of the government, like the Department of Legal affairs, Department Of Personnel and Training, Law Ministry and the Telecom Department.The Prime Minister is being represented by India's top legal officer, the Attorney General, in the Supreme Court after the PM was asked to reply why he did not act on a plea to prosecute A Raja, the former telecom minister accused of enacting the multi-billion 2G spectrum scam.Attorney General of India GE Vahanvati replaced Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium to argue for the Prime Minister who faced an unprecedented rebuke by the Supreme Court on the 2G scam.The 2G Spectrum scam spelt the biggest embarrassment for the Central government on Thursday as the Supreme Court (SC) sought an affidavit on behalf of the Prime Minister.The court was responding to the allegations of no response from the PMO to Janata Dal leader Subramanium Swamy's repeated letters seeking sanction to prosecute former Telecom minister A Raja in the scam which cost the state exchequer Rs 1.76 lakh crore (nearly $40 billion).The whole controversy is going to be the litmus test for the UPA-2 government as opposition is firm on its demand for joint parliamentary committee on the 2G spectrum scam.
