New Delhi, December 2
Rejecting former Telecom Minister A Raja’s pleadings that he showed great respect to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues, the Supreme Court today observed that he used intemperate language in his letter to the PM, bluntly rejected as “out-of-context” the then Law Minister’s suggestion and kept the Finance Ministry in the dark on decisions relating to the allocation of 2G Spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices.

Citing a letter written by Raja to PM Manmohan Singh on November 2, 2007, a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly pointed out that the minister had informed the PM that auctioning 2G Spectrum would be “unfair, discriminatory, capricious and arbitrary” as this would deny a level playing field to the companies starting telecom business for the first time.

Raja had sent the communication in response to PM’s letter sent to him earlier in the day advising the Telecom Ministry to adopt a transparent procedure and that the PMO should be informed before any fresh move on the Spectrum issue.

“Look at the gloss of the minister…See his command over the language...Look at the attitude,” the Bench remarked sarcastically, explaining that the standard practice in official communication, particularly while writing to a superior, was to ensure that language was “temperate.”