The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the maintainability of two petitions seeking CBI probe against Union home minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G scam case.
A bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and K.S. Radhakrishnan would first decide the question whether petitions filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy and NGO CPIL were maintainable under the law.
If the court comes to the conclusion that they were maintainable, then it might issue notices to the government, CBI and even Mr Chidambaram seeking their views on the questions raised in the two petitions before passing any order for the agency probe against the home minister for his alleged role in “fixing” 2G spectrum price as finance minister along with the then communications minister A. Raja in the UPA-I.
The verdict was reserved by the bench after Mr Swamy concluded his argument stating that Mr Chidambaram could have stopped Raja from committing the “illegality” and if he was not listening to his advice, he could have asked for the meeting of the Cabinet, which had empowered them to take a joint decision on the 2G price.
“But prima facie, the conclusion from the three meetings between Chidambaram and Raja and their two meetings with the Prime Minister, during the entire process starting from July 2007 and ending in January 2008, at no stage any attempt was made by the then finance minister to stop Raja from going ahead with allocation of scarce spectrum at throw- away prices,” Mr Swamy said.
He said five memorandums prepared by the finance ministry officials, had clearly stated that the prices of 2G spectrum should be increased. “Therefore, by coming to agreement with Raja on price, violated the government’s laid down norms,” Mr Swamy said, adding that not only this the then finance minister allowed acquisition of shares by companies on the “speculative trading” of spectrum even before they had rolled out their services.