JOIN US Suspense over a verdict on Home Minister P Chidambaram’s alleged role in the allocation of 2G spectrum will last for at least another two days.
The Supreme Court did not pronounce its ruling on the issue, leaving it to the lower court which has already heard a similar case, to decide the case.
The apex court bench of Justice G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly has given Special CBI Judge O P Saini here two weeks to deliver his verdict. The trial court has already reserved the application case for order for February 4.
Legal experts say the judgement from the trial court would, in all probability, will come through on Saturday as the hearing has been completed and only order has to be delivered.
Justices Singhvi and Ganguly said in their ruling: “Keeping in view the fact that the intervener (Subramanian Swamy) has already filed an application before the Special Judge, CBI, before whom he is appearing in person in the complaint-case instituted by him and made a prayer for summoning Chidambaram as an accused, we do not consider it proper to entertain his prayer for issue of a mandate to the CBI to investigate Chidambaram."
The bench, did not refer, in particular to the role of Chidambaram, then finance minister, in the scam. However, at the same time, it did not comment on the merits of submissions made by petitioner on making Chidambaram co-accused in the spectrum scam along with Raja.
Govt optimistic
However, there were indications that the government was cautiously optimistic over the future of Chidambaram.
The government has taken heart from the observations made by the Supreme Court on Thursday that the Department of Telecom (DoT) did not listen to advice of the Finance Ministry while going ahead with the first-come, first-served policy (FCFS) in allocating 2G spectrum in 2008.
The judgement said: “.. the Department of Telecom was under an obligation to involve the Ministry of Finance before any decision could be taken in the context of .....TRAI’s [Telecom Regulatory Authority of India] recommendations. However, as the Minister [Raja] was very much conscious of the fact that the Secretary, Finance, had objected to the allocation of 2G spectrum at the rates fixed in 2001, he did not consult the Finance Minister or the officers of the Finance Ministry.”
This paragraph was learnt to have been one of the main issues discussed at a meeting the PM took this evening. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, Defence Minister AK Antony and Chidambaram attended the meeting.
Chidambaram’s role in the scam had come into sharp focus after revelations that he consented with the FCFS policy and later wanted auction to be the policy in allocation of spectrum in future biddings. Speculation on his future as minister increased after a 2G office memorandum accessed through RTI, “seen by Mukherjee”, indicated that Chidambaram as finance minister could have stopped the scam from taking place, if he had acted.
In his petition, Swamy had sought inquiry against Chidambaram and contended that the latter as finance minister had a role in fixation of prices of the licenses and in the dilution of shares by the telecom firms to two foreign companies.