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SC verdict on PC’s role in 2G scam today
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, February 1
The Supreme Court will deliver tomorrow its judgments on three pleas in the 2G scam case, including one for probing the alleged involvement of Home Minister P Chidambaram when he was the Finance Minister and another for setting up a special investigation team (SIT) in view of the “slipshod” probe conducted by the CBI in the case.

A Bench of Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly, who retires tomorrow, will also give its verdict on another petition seeking cancellation of the 122 spectrum licenses for various reasons, including the alleged scam in 2G allocation to telecom operators.

The plea for probing Chidambaram’s role has been made by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy while the other two pleadings have been advanced by the Centre for PIL (CPIL) through its counsel Prashant Bhushan.

According to Swamy, Chidambaram endorsed Raja’s move to allot spectrum to telecom companies in 2008 at 2001 prices on first-come, first-served basis, rather than through auction. This was despite the fact that both the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Law Ministry were opposed to hasty allocation of spectrum.

Both the Centre and the CBI have opposed the plea. Appearing for the CBI, senior counsel KK Venugopal contended that the agency did not feel the need to proceed against Chidambaram, as no evidence was found against them. Further, the SC had no power to direct the CBI to conduct investigations against “particular individuals” or to take the probe “in a particular direction”.

Senior counsel PP Rao, appearing for the Centre, contended that Chidambaram had no role in the scam as he had taken a consistent stand for revising the Spectrum price and despite this Raja had released the letters of intent (LoIs) on January 10, 2008 without even waiting for the full Telecom Commission meeting slated for January 15. Opposing the plea for appointing a monitoring committee, Venugopal said the CBI was a specialised agency that normally substituted the state police whenever such need arose.