Comments
A Special Court will hear on January 21 the arguments on the Janata Party President, Dr Subramanian Swamy’s plea to make the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, a co-accused in the 2G case.
This followed Dr Swamy submitting before the court certified copies of documents to say that, “The evidence reveals the connivance, collusion and the consent of the then Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram in the decisions taken by the then Telecom Minister Mr A. Raja in fixing the price of the (2G) spectrum licence; and permitting two companies which received the (2G) licence – Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless – in dilution of shares even before the roll-out of their services.”
Dr Swamy also told the court that, “The evidence brings on record the commission of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act for which Mr Raja has already been charged by the Special Court.” He said, “If Mr Raja is guilty, then Mr Chidambaram also is guilty.”
Dr Swamy further said, “I have also brought on record evidence to show that Mr Chidambaram is also guilty of breach of trust in question of national security for not disclosing that Etisalat and Telenor (to which Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless had respectively ‘diluted’ their equity) were blacklisted by the Home Ministry Advisory.”
The certified copies of the documents that Dr Swamy placed before the court include: “Minutes of a meeting between the Prime Minister (Dr Manmohan Singh), the then Finance Minister (Mr Chidambaram) and the then Telecom Minister (Mr Raja); minutes of the meeting between Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja on January 30, 2008; letter written by Mr Chidambaram to the Prime Minister on January 15, 2008; copies of documents received by Dr Swamy under the Right to Information Act; communication received by Dr Swamy from the Prime Minister’s Office; and extracts of the reports of the Committee presided over by Justice Shivraj V Patil.”
Dr Swamy said the documents also pertain to “Officials telling Mr Chidambaram that the price of the spectrum was very low and should be revisited and revised, but Mr Chidambaram not agreeing to it. (The 2G licence given to companies in 2008 was at a price fixed in 2001.)”
On January 21, Dr Swamy will lead the arguments in the matter.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.