Former telecom minister Arun Shourie on Friday appeared before the CBI in connection with the 2G case and said that the real issue involved kickbacks and not the policy pursued for spectrum allocation.

Calling for A Raja to turn ?approver,? Shourie said the first-come first-serve argument being used by the government was a ?red herring? to divert attention from the fact that money was made in the allocation of spectrum.

Shourie appeared before the CBI for questioning in connection with the agency?s probe into aspects of the telecom policy since 2001. It has been alleged that during Shourie?s time new licences were given to Tata Teleservices, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Aircel without auctions, which was against the Cabinet decision of 2003.

Shourie, telecom minister in the NDA government between January 2003 and May 2004, was with agency officials for nearly three and half hours after which he also accused his successor Dayanidhi Maran of changing the guidelines of spectrum allocation. He pointed that both Raja and Maran ignored the Cabinet?s decisions.

?I pointed out to them (the CBI) the things which were to happen in accordance with Cabinet decisions never happened neither during Maran term and certainly not under Raja. And they never went back to the Cabinet for changing the decision. That is the telling point…Real issue is money was exchanged,? he said.

Shourie reached CBI headquarters at 10.30 am. He gave a 60-page document to the agency related to telecom policies and spectrum allocation during the NDA regime. Former telecom secretary (at the time of NDA regime) Vinod Vaish, who came at the request of Shourie, was also present during the examination.

Highlighting several irregularities, Shourie told investigators that Maran had changed the guidelines in 2005 and announced that ?there should be no cap in number of operators in a circle.? There were no recommendations from Trai in 2005 and this was included by the Trai in their recommendation two years later in 2007. It is not clear as how this was decided by Trai in 2007 and Raja acted on this recommendation.

Elaborating on the first-come first-serve, Shourie said: ?There were 167 applications for licenses pending when Raja took over. Without going into the merits of these application, Raja invited 402 fresh applications and clubbed the pending application with the fresh ones. Later, using clauses, he disqualified more than 300 applications and laid new rules with letter of intent clause which required the firm to deposit more than R1,600 crore in a short span of time.?

Shourie also advised former telecom minister Raja to turn approver so that he could help reveal the money trail and the names of other beneficiaries. He slammed the Shivraj Patil Committee report calling it an attempt by telecom minister Kapil Sibal to deflect the blame and divert attention. ?Questioning industrialists and arresting few involved in the scam is an effort to divert the attention from real issue. The CBI which has shown some courage after Supreme Court monitoring needs to find out the money trail. Who took the money, who was favoured and what were the manipulations done by the officials?? he said.

After his CBI meeting, Shourie said he was asked questions on the Trai?s recommendations and the circumstances of the decisions taken regarding spectrum allocation. ?I was asked about the decision taken by the Cabinet with regard to telecom policies. I told them that the Trai recommendations were followed.?

He said all licences granted to telecom companies during his tenure were fair and impartial. ?I showed them (the CBI) a report in which there were not a single telecom company coming forward to operate in these areas. Not one of the 28 licences was given for any lucrative area. They were given for the areas in which nobody was going The objective of the Government was that in the North East, Bihar, Eastern UP and Jammu and Kashmir, mobile telephony should be extended and we achieved that,? he said.

The CBI said it had questioned the former telecom minister in connection with 50 licences which were given on a first-come first-serve basis and Bharti, Vodafone and Idea were among the beneficiaries of the policy. Officials said they may set up another meeting with Shourie.