Court blames implementation, not government: Sibal
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Seeking to put a brave face, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday said the Supreme Court order on telecom licences did not indict Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but was a criticism of the policy inherited from the previous government.
His response, seeking to blame the policy of the previous National Democratic Alliance government, came a few hours after the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of all 122 telecom licences issued in 2008 when A. Raja was communications minister.
"Supreme Court says policy (first come first served) was per se discriminatory. That was a policy, which was decided upon by the then NDA government. It was followed when the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) came into power," Sibal told reporters.
In a bid to underline his argument that the implementation of the policy had caused the second generation (2G) spectrum allocation case to be put on trial, Sibal said Raja had been found by the apex court to have have committed irregularities in allocating airwaves on seven grounds.
"The judgment says how overnight things were done, like dates were changed overnight, drafts were sought overnight with no time given. So nobody knew what was happening on the ground at that point of time," said the minister.
"Had we known any of these things in advance, I am sure that something would have been done."
Sibal went on to add that the Supreme Court's order gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
"The prime miniser was in no way responsible, nor was the finance minister in any way responsible for whatever happened. The Supreme Court has endorsed that," said Sibal.
When asked about the ramifications of the order, Sibal said: "The judgment will bring clarity to the situation. It will bring sanity to the sector and it will bring hope to the sector because now the roadmap is clear. And we will get large investments."
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