After two judicial setbacks — the Supreme Court order cancelling 122 telecom licences and criticising procedures; and the apex court’s criticism of the government’s handling of the Army chief’s retirement age — the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) got a breather on Saturday, with the CBI special court dismissing Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy’s petition that sought to make Home Minister P Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case.
“Your prayer to summon Chidambaram as an accused is dismissed,” Special Judge O P Saini said on Swamy’s petition, reading out from his much-awaited judgment.
The court said, from March 17, it would commence the hearing on the complaint filed by Swamy in which he had made allegations against former Communications Minister A Raja without making Chidambaram an accused.
| SWAMY VS CHIDAMBARAM A TIMELINE Aug 23, 2011 Swamy moves SC seeking a CBI investigation against the role of Home Minister (then finance minister) P Chidambaram in the 2G case Aug 26 Swamy tells special CBI court that he will file a plea before it to make Chidambaram a co-accused September 8 SC directs Swamy to submit his correspondence with CBI in relation with his plea October 10 SC reserves order on plea to probe Chidambaram’s alleged role in the 2G scam January 21, 2012 Special CBI court reserves its order till Feb 4. February 2 SC refuses to ask CBI to probe Chidambaram’s role and leaves it to the special court to decide February 4 The special court dismisses Swamy’s plea to make Chidambaram a co-accused |
Swamy had in his petition sought to make Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G case, alleging he was as culpable as Raja in determining the price of the spectrum.
Although Swami has declared he will appeal against the order, the Congress party welcomed the terse, one-word treatment of a matter that could have had profound political implications.
Party sources revealed they were worried about the observations of the Supreme Court. About Swamy’s petition, they had anticipated that the trial court would dismiss it, because there was little evidence to back the case. However, the politics of licence cancellation might have taken a negative turn for the government, had the Supreme Court criticised the conduct of one of the its top ministers.
On the record, the party was jubilant. Party Spokesperson Manish Tewari said BJP owed an “apology” to the nation for the “campaign of calumny, vilification and innuendo” in the matter. He said there was nothing in the government’s conduct in the 2G spectrum matter that it should feel apologetic about.
“Now that both the Supreme Court and the trial court have spoken substantively on the issue, the matter should be put to rest,” Tewari said, when asked if the Congress considered that the trial court order had given a clean chit to Chidambaram.
Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said he had always known his ministerial colleague was not guilty of the charges made by Swamy. “Swamy merely had political ends,” Sibal said. The verdict had another consequence too, albeit unintended: It cleared the confusion between Chidambaram and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
“This verdict will not change the corrupt image of the government or the intensity of our campaign... The issue of political accountability of Chidambaram remains alive... We will continue to raise the matter of his accoun-tability before the nation,” said BJP Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“This decision is of a lower court. There are two higher courts to go... there is a hierarchy of courts,” Prasad said.
Over the government’s handling of the 2G case, Mukherjee and Chidambaram had a misunderstanding that escalated to a point where Congress President Sonia Gandhi had to step in to resolve the differences. On Saturday, Mukherjee put the past behind and defended Chidambaram. He told reporters that the Supreme Court was clear and the trial court had reinforced the view — that neither the then finance minister (Chidambaram) nor the finance ministry had any role in influencing the spectrum allotment. Chidambaram, on the other hand, chose not to speak. He was in Delhi until afternoon, and, soon after the order was delivered, he left for Madurai en route to Kudan-kulam to address the problems arising from the nuclear power plant there.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it would not relent in its attack on the government just because one case had been dismissed. The party was marshalling all its legal resources to train its guns on the procedural and policy errors that led to what it claims to be a loss of Rs 1,76,000 crore to the exchequer.
