It becomes evident from the affidavit filed on behalf of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the government was determined to derail his attempts to legally pursue prosecution in the 2G spectrum case, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy said in his rejoinder filed in the Supreme Court on Monday.
On November 18, a Bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly in a brief order had said: “At the commencement of further hearing, Gopal Subramanian, Solicitor General, made a statement that he has the entire record and is prepared to place the same before the Court. However, as the record may not be readily available to the petitioner, we deem it proper to require filing of an affidavit on behalf of respondent no.1 [Prime Minister].”
Accordingly, the affidavit was filed on Saturday by V. Vidyavati, Director in the PMO, explaining the steps taken by the Prime Minister from the time the complaint was received from Dr. Swamy in November 2008 and a reply was sent in March 2010.
In his rejoinder, Dr. Swamy said the affidavit vindicated his averments, viz. till March 19, 2010, none of the letters written by him seeking sanction was replied to. “This is contrary to the averment of the Solicitor General on November 18 that every letter was replied to.”
On the Prime Minister making independent inquiries on the substance of the material he provided in these letters, Dr. Swamy said such an inquiry was against the judgments of the Supreme Court. It is regrettable that Law Officers of the government had failed to apprise the Prime Minister of the law of the land that he must decide on the question of sanction only on the material provided by him.
On the Prime Minister forwarding his complaint to the former Communications Minister, A. Raja, for conveying his defence to him, Dr. Swamy said “this too is against the judgments of the Supreme Court.”
The case comes up for further hearing on Tuesday.
