India Leader Offers to Testify in Scandal Inquiry

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered Dec 20 to appear before a committee investigating a telecommunications scandal that has rocked India’s political establishment.

He rejected claims by opposition parties that he had been trying to avoid any questioning. “I wish to state categorically that I have nothing to hide from the public at large,” Prime Minister Singh said on the final day of a plenary session of the Indian National Congress Party. “As proof of my bona fides,” he said, he would appear before a government committee examining the scandal “if it chooses to ask me to do so.” The scandal has become a political crisis for the coalition government led by the Congress Party. Last week, the Supreme Court announced that it would monitor an investigation into the scandal by the leading law enforcement agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation. In recent days, the bureau’s officers have conducted raids across the country, and government agents are investigating allegations of money laundering and tax evasion. The scandal centers on the 2008 allocation of cellphone spectrum — the electromagnetic waves required to carry cellphone service — to private operators. Investigators are examining whether the telecommunications minister, who has since resigned, favored certain applicants and whether bribes and fiscal improprieties took place. A report by the government’s auditor general found many irregularities and concluded that the telecom ministry had sold the spectrum at deflated prices that cost the treasury as much as $39 billion. Many analysts say that estimate is probably too high.