Raja’s predecessors too are not saints: Jayalalithaa

CHENNAI - AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa, referring to the 2G spectrum scam, said Friday that former communications minister A. Raja’s predecessors too were not saints.

She welcomed the Supreme Court decision to monitor the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the scam and enlarging the probe period.

She also reiterated that the central government should not duck the opposition demand for a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

Welcoming the Supreme Court’s insistence that the probe should cover the alleged irregularities in the grant of telecom licences right from 2001, Jayalalithaa said in a statement here that Raja’s resignation is not the end of the spectrum scam but only a beginning.

“It is now abundantly clear that though the scam in the sale of spectrum reached Himalayan heights during Raja’s tenure, his predecessors, including his party colleague and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s grand nephew Dayanidhi Maran, have not been saints by any stretch of imagination,” she said.

Insisting on the demand for a JPC probe into the spectrum scam, Jayalalithaa said: “The scope of the CBI investigation is limited to certain parameters. It cannot, and will not, include the conspirators and accessories to the scam, many of whom are in positions of considerable political power, both in the state and at the centre.”

“The whole truth has to come out. And for this, a JPC probe is the only solution,” she added.

According to her, the apex court order has obviously been necessitated by the fact that the nation’s premier investigating agency has shown monumental lethargy in investigating the case which was referred to it a year and a half ago.

The recent spurt in the activities of the CBI in the case has come only after the apex court raised the very pertinent question as to why the agency was dithering, and why the main protagonist in the scam, Raja, had not even been interrogated so many months after the case had been filed, Jayalalithaa said.

She charged that the CBI has not changed its approach as it has still not interrogated Raja even three weeks after the Supreme Court raised the question.