Amidst the raging controversy over finance ministry’s note to the PMO on alleged role of P. Chidambaram in fixing the 2G spectrum price along with former telecommunications minister A. Raja, the Centre on Thursday opposed any order from the Supreme Court for CBI probe against him and further monitoring of the case by it.
In contrast, the CBI urged the top court to continue with its monitoring while supporting government’s stand that the apex court could not issue any further order for probe against Mr Chidambaram after the trial judge has taken cognisance of the chargesheet in the 2G case filed against Raja and other co-accused.
CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal even rose up to interject while government counsel P.P. Rao was making a submission against further monitoring and categorically told a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Gaguly that the agency “wants monitoring to continue” as the investigation in the cases against former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran and telecom company Loop was still on.
At this, the bench asked Mr Rao whether he had “instruction” from the government to withdraw the statement of solicitor-general endorsing the monitoring of the case by the apex court. Mr Rao though said that the “statement of SG still stands” but the apex court could monitor the case only if the law permitted it after filing of the chargesheet.
As the government and the CBI took diametrical stand on the issue, the bench virtually rejected Mr Rao’s proposition that the court should adhere to a “lakshman rekha” in intervening in the probe by the agency once chargesheet is filed. “There should be a lakshman rekha (for monitoring). When chargesheet is submitted, the presumption is that the investigating agency has considered all relevant material available till then, identified the accused and witnesses to the offence,” Mr Rao said.
He said since complainant Subaramanian Swamy had approached the trial court seeking probe against Mr Chidambaram and even has sought to examine himself as witness by the trial judge, in such a situation his petition for an order from the Supreme Court did not stand legal scrutiny, Mr Rao argued.
Mr Rao said since the guidelines on monitoring till filing of the chargehseet were laid down by the apex court itself in the famous Vineet Narayan (Jain-Hawala) case judgment, if the top court wanted to overturn them, then 2G case should be referred to a larger bench.
However, the court was not much convinced with his proposition, especially in the light of its December 16, 2010 order laying down guidelines for the CBI, ED and I-T department for investigating the 2G scam case and said “lakshman rekha is not so sacrosanct. You must understand that lakshman rekha is for limited purpose”. The court cited several instances when it continued with the monitoring of cases related to serious issues.