Dayanidhi Maran called himself PM, telecom: Former TRAI chief Pradip Baijal

NEW DELHI: The ghosts of the 2G scam keep coming back to haunt former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team even as the nation celebrates 25 years of the reform process kicked off by Singh himself. In his just-released book, The Bureaucrat Fights Back — The Complete Story of Indian Reforms, former chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and disinvestment secretary Pradip Baijal says the appointment of Dayanidhi Maran as minister for communications and information technology in 2004, despite his family owning a broadcast business, was a clear case of conflict of interest.

Baijal, who after retiring joined lobbyist Niira Radia’s consulting firm Neosis as director, says Singh dismissed the issue of Maran’s appointment as minister despite Baijal’s bringing it to his notice. Radia was, in tapes released a few years ago, heard lobbying for Maran’s removal from the telecom ministry.

The juicier parts in the book come as Baijal discusses Maran’s ways. He says Maran declared himself “Prime Minister, Telecom”, said he would take all decisions on telecom, and that Baijal, the chairman of the TRAI, an independent regulator, had “no business meeting the prime minister”. Once, when Maran came to know about a meeting Baijal had had with the prime minister, he warned Baijal that he would “come to severe harm”.

Maran did not respond to calls and a text message on his mobile from HT asking for his side of the story. Singh did not respond to an email.

The then Prime Minister had set up two committees to chalk out a roadmap to help growth of broadband. Of the two, in the PMO, one was headed by Singh himself and the other — a subordinate committee — by the PM’s principal secretary.

Maran directed his officers not to attend the meetings. “Consequent to his actions, the committees on broadband in the PM’s office never met. His pressurisation techniques also got him out of the scrutiny of the empowered group of ministers on spectrum-pricing issues, a time now identified by many as the beginning of Congress’s end,” writes Baijal, who shot to prominence as the disinvestment secretary under the then disinvestment minister Arun Shouri. He wonders how the finance ministry did not get to examine the pricing issue.

Baijal recounts how, once he had retired, the Central Bureau of Investigation raided his house, though “they did not know what they were looking for.” He claims the CBI had made out a case for custodial interrogation, alleging that he was not co-operating in the inquiry. “The vague discussion with them led me to understand that the raid was made on the charge that I had Tata-Unitech’s deal papers,” he says.

Baijal claims that the salary offered to him by Radia was nominal and less than that of the TRAI chairman. He says that the controversy that broke out around Radia “was perhaps the result of investigations instigated by corporate rivals. Also she was a British national, a divorcee, and had a high profile, and ideal target for spreading canards. I can only say with my limited experience of working with her…that she was highly professional in her approach and work.”