 "Jaitley says Sibal and a retired judge behind fabricated chargesheet")
In a post titled ‘A fabricated chargesheet rebuffed by court’, posted on social networking site Facebook, Jaitley echoed the order of Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Judge OP Saini. Jaitley said he had always maintained that the chargesheet against former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and others was “full of fabricated facts” and the court on Thursday vindicated this.
In his order, the judge also directed the CBI to conduct an inquiry and take action against erring officers. The finance minister said the officers were indeed guilty of fabricating charges against an honest civil servant and others. “There is no doubt that the chargesheet was filed at the behest of Kapil Sibal, the telecom minister in the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government,” Jaitley said.
The finance minister said CBI officers who acted on the dictates of the UPA government would now face an inquiry. “But what about the ministers who conspired to create a fabricated chargesheet and a retired judge who, for the sake of a post-retirement assignment, agreed to lend his offices for the same,” Jaitley asked. He said Sibal, at a time when the Telecom sector was riddled with scams, “selected a retired judge of his choice and asked him to unearth an 'NDA scam' in Telecom”.
The judge, Jaitley claimed, opined that there could be arbitrariness in fixing the spectrum user charges for allocation of additional spectrum. “An unsustainable chargesheet was filed against an outstanding and honest civil servant Shyamal Ghosh. The idea to attack the NDA was by including the late Pramod Mahajan in Column II as a deceased accused,” he said. Ghosh was the telecom secretary during 2001-03 and Mahajan, the telecom minister.
The CBI, with Amar Pratap Singh as its then director, registered the case in November 2011. Apart from Ghosh and another official, telecom firms Hutchison Max, Sterling Cellular and Bharti Cellular were also named for purported irregularities in the grant of additional 2G spectrum that allegedly led to a loss of Rs 508 crore.
The finance minister also pointed to an article he had written on the issue in a leading daily in April 2013. In that article, Jaitley had said the charge against Mahajan, who is no more and therefore cannot be prosecuted, is “absolutely ill-founded and baseless”. Without naming the then telecom minister, Jaitley had said the CBI case at the behest of the minister has meant “former civil servants and investors have become his victims” and “in the process he (the minister) has damaged the sector further adding to its instability”.
On Judge O P Saini's order, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said, "The lies of Congress have been exposed. Its conspiracy has fallen apart. We seek an apology from Congress. After these orders, it is not saying anything. It is resorting to spit, run and hide tactic."
Javadekar told mediapersons that the Congress-led UPA had run a campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 13 years on the basis of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's allegations, which was now exposed after the Supreme Court observations.
He also referred to a Supreme Court decision to dismiss a bunch of pleas seeking a probe into the alleged scam in purchase of defence equipments in 1999 Kargil operations. Congress, he recalled, had boycotted the then Defence Minister George Fernandes alleging 'coffin scam'.
"All the lies of Congress have been unmasked. For 15 years, it hounded Fernandes. For 13 years, it tried to defame Modi by using Bhatt," he said
Dramatis personae in the 2G Additional Spectrum case
* In December 2010, Sibal appointed a one man committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to look into the deficiencies in the allocation of 2G spectrum from 2001 to 2009
* CBI case in alleged irregularities in additional 2G spectrum allocation registered on November 19, 2011
* Telecom secretary during 2001-03 Shyamal Ghosh and one other DoT official named
* Also named were three telecom firms: Hutchison Max, Sterling Cellular and Bharti Cellular
* Telecom Minister during NDA regime Pramod Mahajan also named but not prosecuted as he had passed away by then
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* At the time of registry of the FIR, Telecom Minister was Kapil Sibal and CBI Director was Amar Pratap Singh