Government didn't take steps to prevent 2G scam, says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its distress that the stand of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh favouring "auctioning" of 2G spectrum was ignored and no timely action was taken to prevent the scam.

A bench of Justices comprising of G.S. Singhvi and H.L. Dattu criticised the government  for its handling of the situation ahead of 2 G spectrum allocation in which the policy of the auction was given a go and the Telecom Minister under A. Raja adopted first-come-firsst-served policy.

The bench said that even when the then telecom minister did not agree with the Prime Minister for auctioning the scarce spectrum and went ahead with issuing Letters of Intent (LoIS), no timely action was taken so as to prevent it which has aroused today and lately the matter reached the courts.

The bench was hearing the bail pleas of the jailed Managing Director of Unitech Wireless (TamilNadu) Pvt Ltd Sanjay Chandra and  Swan Telecom's Director Vinod Goenka in the case.

The bench also referred to the scheduled Telecom Commission meeting of January 9, 2008 which was postponed to January 15 and on January 10, Mr. Raja had issued 122 LoIs for the 2 G spectrum without following the policy of auction.

It further said that three years from September-October 2008 when complaints in writing were made including to the CVC about the seriousness of the issue, steps were not taken to put an end to it.

The ASG responded to the remarks by saying that it was on January 10, 2008 that it came to the knowledge of the Government that a decision has been taken by the then Telecom Minister for allocating the 2G spectrum.

The bench also questioned the CBI about its delay in completing the procedure which was coming in way of commencing the trial of the case.

It observed that the senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, who is appearing for some of the accused in the case, will take his own time for cross-examining the witnesses and it could also be possible that he may take a months time in examining a single witness.

News reported by AR for Newsvision