2G bomb starts ticking for UPA?
- MONDAY, 30 JANUARY 2012 00:11
- PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | NEW DELHI
The next few days are going to be tension-packed for the UPA Government as the Supreme Court is set to deliver several crucial judgments on 2G scam. These include order on a petition seeking CBI probe in the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the scam.
With Justice AK Ganguly of the 2G scam bench retiring on February 2, the bench comprising Justice GS Singhvi, is expected to pronounce four crucial judgements, any day before Thursday.
The Special Court on 2G Scam headed by Special Judge OP Saini has already set Saturday — February 4 — for judgement on whether to summon Chidambaram in the spectrum scam. Apart from the spectrum cases, on February 3, Army chief General VK Singh will start his legal battle against the Central Government in the apex court.
According to legal experts, the bench headed by Justice Singhvi and Justice Ganguly may deliver four judgements between Tuesday and Thursday. Judgments are reserved in all the four cases filed by Janata party president Subramanian Swamy and noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan. If the judges did not come before Justice Ganguly retire, the entire hearing process would have to re-start.
For the UPA Government, among the four cases, the most crucial one is on Swamy’s petition to probe Chidambaram’s role by CBI in the spectrum scam. This case shook the Government when Swamy placed before court Financial Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s note indicting Chidambaram. The judgement was reserved in October last year.
Judgement on Bhushan’s demand for creating Special Investigation Team (SIT) to help the Supreme Court in monitoring the CBI probe was also reserved in October last year. The petition cited several “dilly-dallying” by CBI and “political interventions” to save top corporate icons in the probe.
The all-important judgement the corporate world is watching relates to petition by Swamy and Bhushans to cancel the entire telecom licences granted by jailed former Telecom Minister A Raja. These licences were declared illegal by CAG.
Apart from cancellation, the petitioners demanded for court monitored auction of these licences to retrieve the lost money to the exchequer.
The fourth pending judgement is on Swamy’s first case against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for not granting sanction for prosecuting Raja for the past two years. The case which was supposed to be infructuous after Raja’s resignation, unexpectedly hit the Central Government when the judges raised objections on the inordinate delay from Manmohan Singh’s office.
The court sent notice to PMO, but the Prime Minister got reprieve, when Swamy made a u-turn by filing an affidavit favouring Manmohan Singh, and putting blame on PMO officials and Law Ministry. While reserving judgement on January, last year, the apex court said that they would form future guidelines for applications on sanction for prosecution.
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