Officers, especially of the elite Indian Administrative Services, mostly learn practical lessons through precedence. Chat informally with any senior-level IAS officer and the conversation will be littered with numerous experiences of battling ministers/politicians or handling tricky law & order situations and corporate lobbying over policy matters using tact. In most such situations, the learning comes from some revered seniors who have shown remarkable skills at managing contradictions yet not straying from the right path. Recollecting this background becomes essential because one of the first decisions of R Chandrasekhar, the new department of telecommunications secretary, leaves one clueless in speculating whether his stint in the department would be fruitful for the sector or almost disastrous as it has been for the last two years under minister A Raja and two secretaries, Siddhartha Behura and PJ Thomas.
Chandrasekhar was formally appointed the DoT secretary only on September 22 but was given additional charge of the department earlier that month, with Thomas being made the CVC. The officer, who was earlier secretary, department of information technology, which also falls under the communications ministry under Raja, had two precedences before him. The first was of DS Mathur, who was secretary when Raja took over as minister in May 2007. The other was of Behura, who succeeded Mathur on January 1, 2008. Let?s look what learnings the two offered.
The seeds of the now-well-known and documented spectrum scam were sown in the summer of 2007 when Raja assumed charge at DoT. The story has been well-documented in detail by this newspaper over the last two years. Raja?s plans on the great loot, which occurred later, were frustrated for quite some time because secretary Mathur refused to play ball. The distinguished secretary proposed that an independent exercise be first done to ascertain whether new criteria needs to be developed for giving out fresh licences. This was not acceptable to Raja, so Mathur refused to sign any files and the matter was stuck. Mathur retired later on December 31 that year and on January 1, 2008, Behura was appointed the new secretary. Now Behura, like Chandrasekhar, was no stranger to Raja?he came from the environment ministry whose minister was Raja before moving over to communications. Behura?s first act was to sign the files as Raja wanted and within 10 days?on January 10?licences were given out.
Coming back to Chandrasekhar and one of his first major acts even before he was formally designated as DoT secretary?he wrote to the CAG, which was pursuing the 2G spectrum case, on September 21 that the law ministry had advised them that CAG has no powers to interfere in policy issues and, therefore, the DoT would not reply to its queries as they fell in the domain of policy. One doesn?t know what kind of background checks Chandrasekhar carried out before writing his note but, as earlier highlighted by this newspaper, the entire exercise to get favourable advice from the law ministry was to ease the pressure on Raja, who had earlier been indicted through a ruling of the Delhi High Court. The DoT had gone on an appeal to the Supreme Court but failed to get any relief. More importantly, the reference note to get the favourable opinion was drafted by a DoT official who was party to the 2G licensing process and is himself being investigated by the CBI. The note was processed by a legal advisor in the DoT who was also involved in advising Raja on the 2G licensing process. Implicit in the entire exercise was that if Raja was saved from embarrassment these two officials would also be.
Further, had Chandrasekhar gone deeper, he would have found that the law ministry had also tried to stop Raja from allocating the licences the way he did, but Raja went ahead disregarding any counsel.
It is hazardous to pontificate at this point in time on what kind of legacy Chandrasekhar would leave when he departs from the DoT but precedence may come to our aid here. Mathur retired from the DoT and later applied for a member?s post in the TDSAT and later for the chairman?s slot at the Trai. He was overlooked for both. Finally he got an assignment as chairman of the commercial tax tribunal in Madhya Pradesh, his parent cadre.
Coming to Behura. Having served the minister loyally and spending his entire tenure in DoT providing logical defence of Raja?s move he threw in his hat for the Trai?s chairman slot when it fell vacant. To his surprise and dismay, he found his candidature dismissed. Even that would have been fine but within a few days of his retirement, the CBI, under directions from CVC, lodged a case against the spectrum case and raided the offices of the DoT. Behura happens to be among the officials who are under investigation.
So far Chandrasekhar seems to have made his minister happy by shooting off the note to CAG. Had he not done so, certainly Raja?s position would have become uncomfortable. It is open to speculation which route his future course of career would take?of Mathur?s or Behura?s? The third possibility under the precedence theory could be that of Thomas, who did nothing apart from making uncomfortable the officers who made Raja unhappy and was quickly made the CVC!
?rishi.raj@expressindia.com