SC wants special courts to try scams

A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly said, in view of the magnitude of the offence, the government should examine the idea of setting up special courts as otherwise the objective of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Foreign Exchange Management Act could not be achieved.

The court was hearing arguments on a petition seeking a court-monitored probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a Special Investigating Team(SIT) probe into the Rs 1.76 lakh crore scam.

Verdict reserved

The court reserved its order on the case. The apex court indicated that it might monitor the probe and the CBI would be asked to file periodic status reports.

The Bench also asked the CBI to probe the role of  State Bank of India, Corporation Bank, Canara Bank, Allahabad Bank and others, which lent thousands of crores of rupees to  some telecom service providers in the form of bank drafts before the letter of intent for allocation of spectrum was issued to them by the Department of Telecommunication in January 2008.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, who appeared for the CBI, sought time till January 30 to submit a report as he has to go through the bank data and the time of issuance of drafts.
“The importance of this case is not just the scale of money involved but the range of corruption that the facts unearthed and the Radia tapes indicate.”

“It shows the corruption of virtually all the important institutions exercising power of the state in the country including the media,’’ senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the petitioners, said.

On the amount of money involved in the 2G scam, the bench observed that there used to be scam of few crores of rupees in 1990s, but now “all barriers of our understanding of finances has been crossed as lakhs of crores of rupees are involved in them.’’

“If at all it is true, it is eating into the vitals of our nation. A sovereign nation like ours could do lots of development with this money,’’ observed the court.

Bhushan said: “Given the importance and sensitivity of the investigation(with sheer range and power of the players involved), and given the track record of the CBI in such matters, it is essential that these investigations are closely monitored by the court.’’

The bench also sought a reply from Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium on setting up a special court to try offences of huge financial magnitude.

“Need of the hour is to set up an exclusive court to deal with the case. These are special cases with huge financial ramifications. Justice will not be done if separate court is not created. The (existing) courts are already overburdened,” the bench commented.

“Most important in this case is appreciation of evidence from a normal murder case. Here it is a conspiracy. That conspiracy angle has to be investigated. It needs expertise. When you enact a law, you should have that in mind,” the bench observed.

However, Venugopal opposed setting up an SIT to monitor the CBI probe, saying  the investigating agency is an independent body capable of probing the scam.