SC sets up special bench to deal with 2G cases

A special two-judge bench was on Friday constituted by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia for hearing all cases arising out of 2G spectrum allocation scam.

In view of a large number of petitions and applications being filed in the apex court by the Centre, telecom companies and others after it passed the order cancelling 122 telecom licences, Justice Kapadia constituted the bench comprising justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Patnaik.

“There is a direction that all 2G matters be taken up by a special bench comprising me and Justice A K Patnaik,” Justice Singhvi said while hearing an appeal filed by Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy challenging the trial court’s order giving clean chit to Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the scam.

He directed the Supreme Court registry to take instruction from the CJI so that Mr. Swamy’s case could be heard by the special bench.

The bench was constituted as Justice A.K. Ganguly, who had passed the orders in the scam along with Justice Singhvi, has retired.

The bench had passed a slew of judgements in the scam including the order cancelling the 122 2G spectrum licences granted by former Telecom Minister A Raja and held that first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy could not be used for allocation of natural resources.

It had also pulled up the PMO for sitting on the complaint filed against Mr. Raja.