An NGO on Wednesday joined hands with Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy in the Supreme Court in questioning the Central Bureau of Investigation’s probe into the alleged role of Home Minister P. Chidambaram in 2G spectrum scam saying the note of the Finance Ministry makes clear his “involvement” in granting the licence of radio waves at cheaper price.
The NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), alleged the CBI probe has been “less than honest” and it has refused to probe against many high-profile persons including Mr. Chidambaram, who was the Finance Minister when the 2G spectrum was allocated without following the policy of auction.
“CBI investigation is not proceeding on the line it should go. Persons who need to be charge sheeted are not being booked in the scam. It now appears that CBI probe has been less than honest,” advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the CPIL, told a bench of justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly.
The NGO, on whose plea the Supreme Court had started monitoring the case, opposed the government plea that it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to monitor the case anymore and order on conducting any probe against Mr. Chidambaram should not be passed by the bench.
“The note of the Finance Ministry makes it clear that P. Chidambaram was actively involved with the then Telecom Minister A. Raja to give licence and spectrum at 2001 price. He also approved the sale of stake by the telecom companies which were granted licence before they rolled out services,” he said.
Mr. Bhushan said there has been reluctance on the part of the CBI to probe the role of the Home Minister because most of the top CBI officers are IPS and the Home Ministry is there cadre-controlling authority.
“The person (Chidambaram) who gave permission has not been quizzed so far because the cadre-controlling authority of the top CBI officers who are IPS officers is the Home Ministry.
Reluctance to probe Home Minister is not surprising,” he said adding that nor did the CBI record his statement under section 161 of the Code of Criminal procedure as a witness.
He said the CBI by now must have investigated the role of Mr. Chidambaram, who was not only the Finance Minister in 2007-08 but was one of the key persons to have agreed with Mr. Raja.
“The licences were bundled with spectrum at price prevalent in 2001 and he (Mr. Chidambaram) also took the decision,” Mr. Bhushan said and questioned the claim of the CBI reportedly giving clean a chit to him after examining the alleged material against him.
Supporting the stand of Mr. Swamy seeking initiation of a probe against Mr. Chidambaram, Mr. Bhushan said the investigation has not been conducted properly.
Mr. Bhushan said Mr. Swamy’s plea for a CBI probe against the Home Minister has “strengthened” his plea for active monitoring of its probe.
“Investigation has not been completed to the extent it had to be done,” he said while opposing the contention of the CBI and the Centre that the probe in the case was complete and there was no further need of its monitoring by the Supreme Court.
“It is imperative that the CBI investigation should be closely monitored and actively supervised,” he said and added there have been several “unanswered questions” including the probe related to the corporate houses.
He said if proper monitoring is not done in the case, then the 2G scam may go the Hawala case way in which all the accused got acquitted because of poor probe.
