NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday termed the appointment of a two-member committee to review the spectrum allotment of 70 MHz by Indian Space Research Organisation's commercial arm Antrix Corporation to Bangalore-based Devas Multimedia Private Limited a “cover-up operation.”
Talking to reporters, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman wondered how B.K. Chaturvedi could be expected to be objective since he was the Cabinet Secretary in 2005 when the agreement was approved between Antrix and Devas.
Ms. Sitharaman said the terms of reference of the committee did not cover the money trail in the scam. It was a scam of an estimated Rs. 2 lakh crore and a mere review of the agreement meant nothing.
The ISRO's decision to annul the agreement in July 2010 appeared to have been prompted by the interim report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 2G spectrum scandal and not based on any internal assessment or re-think, she said.
Lack of regulation on the part of the government from 2005 to 2010 on the subject needed to be investigated, Ms. Sitharaman stated.
“We want to know from the government if it was aware of the nature of the agreement between ISRO and Antrix Corporation and Devas Multimedia Private Limited, which sold substantial chunk of its shares to a U.S.-based company?” she said.
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