Still, fueling the speculation is Tata’s appearance in a series of taped phone conversations recently leaked to two Indian magazines, Open and Outlook. In the tapes, Tata talks to his p.r. representative and lobbyist, Niira Radia, who also represents Mukesh Ambani, about her efforts to help Raja outmaneuver a rival politician to win a second term as Telecom Minister. “Does he know that the other guy is gunning for him?” Tata asks. Radia replies, “Yeah. He is fully aware. So I promised him I’ll help him. I’m helping him, Ratan, wherever I can.”
In another conversation, Radia discusses with an unidentified person the question of who gained the most from the 2G allocation. She agrees that “the younger brother,” a reference to Mukesh Ambani’s brother and rival, Anil Ambani, is the biggest beneficiary of Raja’s tenure as minister. Asked why she is helping Anil when Mukesh is her client, she says, “This is a very complex issue … My clients, the Tatas, have also been big beneficiaries.”
This is bad precedent.Judiciary can not ask for commission or service charges other than what is prescribed and collected by way of court fees,unless a specific law is enacted by the executive .This practice is unconstitutional.What shall happen if every arm of the Govt, say police .starts following this example?Judiciary must fight with the Govt. to allocate more funds by way of a fiat to the Govt to this effect.
Story:
NEW DELHI: Justice may no longer be cheap in the Supreme Court, at least for rich corporates who for long have paid the same fee as applicable to the common man and sought adjudication on high-stakes matters running into hundreds of crores.
Vodafone realised this when the apex court asked it to deposit Rs 2,500 crore before the court heard its appeal against a Bombay High Court order validating nearly $2 billion capital gains tax on the $11-billion acquisition of Hutch. The SC said the government could withdraw this money but if Vodafone won its appeal, it would have to return the money plus interest.
(As a kavariman, a special deer ends its life if a single strand of its hair falls down,so does a man of honour when a slightest slur is adduced to his honor)
The fresh set of 800 tapes of Nira Radia’s conversations, exposed by newsmagazine Outlook on Sunday, allow us a greater and much deeper peek into another ‘spectrum’ – of large corporates, senior politicians, leading businessmen, and veteran journalists. One can only anticipate what might be the corpus of her contacts once all the 5000-plus Radia tapes are brought to public knowledge.
Opening arguments on Tata’s petition and seeking court’s redress for the damage to his image because of the leak of tapes which were supposed to be in the exclusive custody of government agencies, senior advocateHarish Salve said, “Any part of these tapes could be looked into by the CBI or any other investigating agency. But publication of comments made in private should not be made public as it could lead to tarnishing images of others.”
He gave the example of an excerpt from Radia tapes in which a person was heard talking about 15% being taken by a minister for every project. “In this, the minister gets damned without there being any evidence about his wrongdoing. This is objectionable. And this is the reason why conversations in purely private domain should not be published,” Salve said.
A conversation is private so long as it restricts itself to private affairs.
Obviously this is not the case with Radia tapes.
Talks indicate efforts to influence the running of the Government under the garb ob of PROs and lobbyists.
The job of the PRO in this case appears to be one of being very close to powers that be and it is not long before other skeletons including corruption and honey traps start tumbling out.Let’s wait.
Argument for Tata cites an example of a minister demanding 15% for every project being made public tarnishes the image with out any evidence.
Is it not the same Tata who declared that that he could not sleep because he was informed that a minister would have approved his Airlines project if Tata paid 15 Crores.
Does this statement has any proof?
There can not be one law for Tata and another set for ordinary mortals.
Tata should understand he is a business man like every one else is and he need not go about preaching morals to the corporate worls.He is as shady as they come.
Can he honestly declare that he has not paid a single rupee as bribe,couched under entertainment expenses starting from Commercial Tax to the ruling parties?
however Media should report fact with out comments.
Unfortunately electronic media especially Arnab Goswamy is crossing all the limits of journalistic ethics and coutesy where he becomes the accuser,jury a
Govt. seems to have a valid reason for tapping the phone as it seems to have receives a specific compliant .
NEW DELHI: The contents of a fresh set of leaked phone conversations involving Niira Radia and her associates paint an alarming picture of the extent to which the influential lobbyist — whose clients include Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata — sought to influence, use, manipulate and even browbeat the media in pursuit of her corporate agendas. Apart from highlighting the use of journalists to plant stories and columns or as intermediaries with politicians, the latest tapes released by the news magazine, Outlook, suggest more strong-arm lobbying techniques were also used or considered, including the possibility of blacklisting the national news agency, PTI.
You must be logged in to post a comment.