The JPC hearing on the 2G spectrum scam took a new twist when former cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar told members that he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2007 to say the government could get R36,000 crore if the one-time entry fee was revised. Against this, the government got R1,651 crore for each licence, taking the total received to around R9,500 crore.

In other words, according to the former cabinet secretary, the government could have got around four times more than it got ? this figure is quite close to the lower estimates of loss made by the CAG.

CPI MP and JPC member Gurudas Dasgupta told FE Chandrasekhar had said his estimate was based on the prevailing market conditions and the demand reflected by the long queue to acquire the licences. CPI MP and JPC member Sitaram Yechury added that, in reply to a question, the former cabinet secretary had confirmed he had conveyed this ?formally? to the prime minister. The JPC is now going to ask the current Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth to submit a copy of the note.

What is intriguing is that the note Chandrasekhar is referring to is still not in the public domain ? almost all documents pertaining to the case were put out on the telecom ministry?s website after telecom minister Kapil Sibal appointed a one-man committee to examine the matter.

While the Opposition has tried to drag the prime minister into the matter, especially since the then telecom minister A Raja had written to the prime minister on several occasions, the prime minister had said the telecom and finance ministers had been in dialogue over the entry fee. During his deposition to the JPC, then finance secretary D Subbarao had said that while he was pursuing the matter with the telecom ministry, he had dropped it due to preoccupations with preparing the budget that year.

A fresh controversy arose when a finance ministry note on the subject surfaced, but this died down when the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the note had been prepared by a junior official and he had not passed it. During his deposition, Chandrasekhar said that he saw the finance ministry note only at the JPC and was not aware of it as it did not go past him.