Supreme Court to pronounce verdict on plea for probe against Chidambaram

The Supreme Court will on Thursday pronounced its judgements on the petitions seeking direction for a probe into the alleged role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum scam and for the cancellation of 122 radiowave licences during the tenure of A Raja, the then Telecom Minister.

The judgement pronounced by the bench comprising of justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly which had reserved its verdict on the plea for the probe against Chidambaram and for the cancellation of spectrum licences on October 10 and March 17 respectively.

The unanimous verdicts on both the petitions would be pronounced by Justice Singhvi.

Since Justice Ganguly is retiring tomorrow, he will be sitting in a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia.

The issues on both the petitions were filed by the NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Janata Party Chief Subramanian Swamy.

The role of Chidambaram in the 2G scam was raised in the Supreme Court by the petitioners who pointed out that there was no evidence showing that the decision regarding the pricing of spectrum was taken jointly by him and Raja.

A finance ministry note to the PMO signed by Pranab Mukherjee was also taken into consideration by the Supreme Court in which it stated that the scam could have been averted that Chidambaram would have suggested the policy of auction instead of first-come-first-served policy on the allocation of spectrum.

The Centre and CBI had vehemently opposed any probe against the Minister P. Chidambaram who was the Finance Minister at the time of the allocation in the year 2008.

They had maintained that Chidambaram was not I direct communication with the then Telecom Minister A Raja in determining the price of radio waves.

However, Swamy at the CPIL had refused the claims of CBI and Centre that Chidambaram was not in the picture till January 10,2008 when the then Telecom Minister A Raja had issued 122 Letters of Intent (LoIs) to telecom companies without following the policy of auction.

Swamy and Bhushan said the finance ministry officials were for allocation of spectrum through allocation but they were overruled by Chidambaram.

Swamy said that there were evidences to show that Raja and Chidambaram had met four times to discuss on the same issue and had a meeting of minds in the commission of offences.

 Reported by

    AR