JOIN US2G scam: Swamy to depose against Chidambaram
Special CBI judge O P Saini allowed the politician, who is one of the petitioners of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court, to depose as witness on December 17.
The court, however, said that the other witnesses, including some CBI officials mentioned by Swamy, would be summoned only after he proves the relevance of their statements.
“In view of the fact that complainant was not aware of the identity of additional accused (s) at the time of filing of complaint, but has now come to know about it, he is not prevented in law from leading evidence on this point, more so when he has referred to the role of other conspirators in his complaint,” the judge noted.
In his complaint, Swamy had sought that Chidambaram be impleaded in the 2G spectrum scam case alleging that the decisions on spectrum pricing and allocation were taken following consultations between him as the Finance Minister and then Telecom Minister A Raja. He had sought framing of charges against Chidambaram as done against Raja.
He had claimed that the official documents given to him by the CBI after the court’s order established that four meetings took place between Chidambaram and Raja in which decision was taken to keep spectrum prices at 2001 level. The court had on December 3 reserved the order on Swamy’s application.
PC’s clean chit
Swamy had relied upon a statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the then finance minister consulted Raja and the two worked out an agreed formula on pricing of spectrum.
“Raja had recorded in a file and in a press note that the then finance minister had permitted the sale of licences to foreign companies - Etisalat of Dubai and Norway’s Telenor - despite both the firms being under the home ministry’s scanner,” Swamy said.
“Swan Telecom and Unitech sold their shares to Etisalat and Telenor respectively. They were under the scanner of the home ministry and the ministry had recommended that these two companies should not be allowed to do business in India,” he said.