A Special Court on Thursday allowed the Janata Party President, Dr Subramanian Swamy’s plea to be examined as a witness on his complaint regarding the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram’s alleged role in the 2G spectrum case.
Special Judge, Mr O.P. Saini, permitted Dr Swamy to "recall himself as a witness for leading further evidence” on his private complaint.
Noting that Dr Swamy's plea has come "at an early stage of the case", the judge said, "I see no reason for disallowing the same." His statement will be recorded before the Special Court on December 17.
However, the Special Court said, other witnesses as mentioned in the ‘list of witnesses’ filed with Dr Swamy’s application shall be allowed to be summoned only after relevance of their testimony is explained by him. The other witnesses include senior bureaucrats and CBI officers.
Mr Chidambaram was the Finance Minister when the 2G spectrum was allocated in 2008 during the tenure of the then Telecom Minister, Mr A. Raja. Dr Swamy had alleged that Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja had jointly taken a decision on the pricing of 2G spectrum.
The Special Court noted that though Dr Swamy had already examined himself as a witness after filing the complaint, at the time of filing of complaint he was not aware of the identity and specific role of the other proposed accused in the 2G scam.
However, the court observed that Dr Swamy has now come to know of the identity of the other accused persons and has placed on record additional material indicating the involvement of other proposed accused.
It then said, “He (Dr Swamy) is not prevented in law from leading evidence on this point, more so, when he has referred to the role of other conspirators in his complaint.”
Dr Swamy alleged that it was Mr Chidambaram who had told Mr Raja that he can allow Swan Telecom and Unitech (the companies that had obtained the 2G licences) to dilute their shares to Etisalat and Telenor. He added that the Home Ministry had raised some security concerns regarding Etisalat and Telenor. The Special Court order, however, did not mention Mr Chidambaram by name.