Ex-SC judge: It is for the people to decide

A day after  a special court acquitted all the accused in the 2G scam, a former Supreme Court judge, who had  cancelled  122  licences, said fresh auction fetched government Rs 65,000 crore and it was for the people to decide whether there was any conspiracy.

"The government in the first instance after auction said it got Rs 65,000 crore. Now it (trial court) says no loss of revenue. Who did it? It is for the people to decide," Justice G S Singhvi told a TV channel.

Justice Singhvi explained that the issue before the apex court was about the allocation of  spectrum  without auction and it was for the trial court to examine conspiracy into it.

"The issue before the CBI court and the Supreme Court were completely different.The issue before the Supreme Court was the allocation of  spectrum  without auction - the fundamental principle of distribution of natural resources through auction," he said. Whether there was a conspiracy in spectrum allocation and any corruption was not before us that was for the CBI court to decide," he added.

The apex court bench, also comprising Justice A K Ganguly, had in its February 2, 2012, noted that the exercise undertaken by the officers of the department of telecommunication between September 2007 and March 2008 in allocation of licences, under the leadership of the then minister A Raja was "wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality".

The apex court's verdict was passed after the Comptroller and Auditor General came out with its report estimating the loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.