Alleging that Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, as Finance Minister, had an equal role as the former Telecom Minister, A. Raja, in fixing the 2G spectrum licence prices, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) on Friday moved the Supreme Court demanding a CBI probe into the former's role in the scam.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan's petition alleged that it was now clearly established with facts and documents that the then Finance Minister overruled the officers of his own Ministry who favoured auction/ market-based pricing of spectrum, and instead allowed the 2G scam to take place and the companies to make windfall profits.
The CPIL alleged that Mr. Chidambaram, in no time, revised his position from giving away 4.4 MHz of spectrum at 2001 prices, to giving away 6.2 MHz of spectrum at 2001 prices thus forcing an additional loss on the exchequer. He knew fully well even post issue of Letters of Intent that it was legally possible to auction start-up spectrum and provisions of the licence agreement being cited by the DoT were not applicable since the LoI holders were not licensees at this stage.
ADVERTISEMENT
Further, it said, the then Finance Minister allowed companies such as Swan and Unitech to sell off their stakes, without charging any government's share of its premium on account of spectrum valuation and without enforcing his own agreement with Mr. Raja dated January 30, 2008.
The petitioner said new documents and evidence showed that within three weeks of the issuance of the LoIs, Mr. Raja and Mr. Chidambaram met and concluded that 14 operators were too many for the Indian market and that several of the new entrants had come in for ‘speculative reasons.' Further, they knew fully well that these companies would enter into Mergers and Acquisitions and make windfall profits because of the premium linked to the spectrum that they had received in 2008 at 2001 prices.
It said Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, as a private complainant, could have only produced the documents that were there in his possession. A thorough investigation could only be done by an official investigation agency like the CBI that could unearth the role of the Finance Minister/Ministry in the scam.
ADVERTISEMENT
Unanswered questions
“There are several unanswered questions that are for the CBI to investigate. The reluctance of the CBI in investigating the role of Mr. Chidambaram or even questioning the then Finance Minister is not surprising because as Home Minister, Mr. Chidambaram is a very powerful figure in the Central Government under which the CBI functions, and most of the officers of the CBI are of IPS cadre whose controlling authority (in charge of appointments, postings, transfers, appraisal reports, promotions) is the Home Ministry itself,” the CPIL said.
It sought a direction to the CBI to conduct a thorough investigation /further investigation into the role of the Finance Ministry under the then Finance Minister in the 2G scam, under the close supervision of the Supreme Court, assisted by the Central Vigilance Commissioner and the senior Vigilance Commissioner.