Arun Shourie recalls an incident with Vajpayee.
The prime minister of India has unlimited power. Our system is so structured that the PM knows everything. Yashwant Sinha, when he was finance minister, told me an incident. He got a message from a leader of the state that s/he wanted to see him. He asked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee if he could can meet that person. Vajpayee said he could meet her/him.
When Sinha went to the state he met the particular leader without anyone knowing about it. He had lunch and talked about all sorts of things. At the end of it, the leader gave him an envelope. He kept it in his pocket. He came to New Delhi and only then opened it. It was a legal brief on why cases against that leader should not be pursued by the Enforcement Directorate. He put the envelope in his drawer and did nothing about it. He forgot the case.
Several days later he met Vajpayee and spoke about his meeting with the state leader. Vajpayee listened quietly and kept looking at him. At the end of the meeting he asked Sinha, 'Aur woh lifafa (what about the envelope)?'
Sinha was astonished since he had told no one about the meeting and he did not act on what was requested. Unless the prime minister deliberately shuts his eyes there is no difficulty in knowing everything. It would be incredible that the prime minister would not know. The system is so structured.
Second, all the telecom dealings were done in public. The Prime Minister's Office would certainly read the newspapers. There was so much commotion in Sanchar Bhuvan that people were beaten up the day the allotment of 2G spectrum was announced. The point is that the prime minister himself wrote a letter and as politely as possible gave instructions that please examine the issue of auctioning of spectrum and determining its price in a fair and transparent manner. And his minister disregards that. Do you think that the PM would not know that?
It was the letter signed by him that was ignored. Coalition dharna doesn't mean that I will become protector of the corrupt. I feel the prime minister must have known about the 2G issue. That's evident from all sorts of facts. Second, coalition compulsions do not give you the license to abdicate your duty.
If your minister is doing something wrong, as captain of the team, the prime minister owes the responsibility to the country to stop the minister. If the PM had confronted Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi with all the evidence, I don't imagine he would have told the PM, 'Don't take action against Raja'.
Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/report/interview-arun-shourie-on-the-real-meaning-of-the-radia-tapes1/20101201.htm
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