2G documents related to ‘PC note’ mailed to Pranab

Several documents relating to the controversial note on 2G spectrum allocation that embarrassed home minister P Chidambaram have been transmitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington, preparatory to his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York. Vinod Sharma and Gaurav Choudhury report.

Several documents relating to the controversial note on 2G spectrum allocation that embarrassed home minister P Chidambaram have been transmitted to finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in Washington, preparatory to his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York.

HT Image

The documents include a chronology of meetings held under the chairmanship of the then cabinet secretary KM Chandrasekhar for formulating “an agreed approach of all ministries concerned and departments for making presentation before various authorities.”

The first meeting in this regard was convened on February 2 at the cabinet secretariat with Chandrasekhar in the chair and joint secretary and director respectively in the PMO Vini Mahajan and Amit Aggarwal in attendance, along with officials from the cabinet secretariat, law and telecom ministries, and the department of economic affairs in the ministry of finance.

Besides thumbnail accounts of discussions spread over February and March, the chronology provides details of to-and-fro e-mail exchanges between the department of economic affairs and officials in the cabinet secretariat.

HT has learnt that presentations by the departments of telecommunication and economic affairs to the JPC probing the spectrum allocation, were taken up at meetings held subsequent to the forwarding of the base paper to the PMO.

From June onwards, cabinet secretary Ajit Seth also attended the meetings as officer on special duty in the cabinet secretariat, besides the outgoing cabinet secretary.