Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on Thursday moved the Supreme Court for a direction to order a Central Bureau of Investigation probe against Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
Dr. Swamy has alleged that Mr. Chidambaram had a role in the decision-making process — during his tenure as Finance Minister along with the former Telecom Minister, A. Raja — in fixing spectrum prices.
The appeal by Dr. Swamy is directed against the special court's February 4 order rejecting his plea to direct the CBI to institute a probe against Mr. Chidambaram and to summon him as an accused in the case.
Dr. Swamy said he had proved and submitted enough documents which made out a prima facie case against Mr. Chidambaram. This was all that was required at the initial stage of the proceedings.
‘Detailed finding'
Assailing the special court's order, he said that despite having made a definite and detailed finding based on his documentation that Mr. Chidambaram was party to two decisions, “that is, keeping the spectrum prices at 2001 levels and dilution of equity by two companies — the two activities for which the main accused [Mr. A. Raja] has been charged, nevertheless the Special Judge held that these two acts are not per se criminal, and hence he rejected his [Swamy's] plea for making Mr. Chidambaram an accused in the trial of the 2G spectrum scam.”
Dr. Swamy said: “The prima facie evidence of criminal misconduct under Section 13(1)(ii)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, arising out of the joint determination of the low spectrum licence price and permitting the share dilution for Swan [Telecom] and Unitech even before roll-out enabled the two licensees who had no other asset than spectrum and under a corporate veil, thereby offloaded substantial shares representing several multiples of the price paid as entry fee for the licences.”
Dr. Swamy said it was evident from the findings in the judgment of the Special Judge that, at least prima facie, Mr. Chidambaram knew all the facts and circumstances and ramifications of the two decisions to which he was a party; and obviously for a complete trial in the instant matter there must be a CBI investigation into the manner in which these decisions were taken and what role was played by whom in taking these two decisions.
He said once the fact of Mr. Chidambaram's participation in these two crucial decisions was accepted, it became the judge's duty to direct investigation into his role.
Dr. Swamy prayed for a direction to set aside the trial court's order rejecting his plea in this regard.
