Supreme Court cancels all 122 2G licenses granted under A Raja
The 2G spectrum saga is one of the most high profile corruption cases in the history of this country, right up there with the fodder scam, the bofors scam, the Havala scam, and the CWG scam.
The today the 2G saga touched another milestone with the Supreme Court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly deciding to cancel the 2G licenses granted to the 122 companies during the tenure of Telecom minister A Raja. The court also said that companies whose licenses were being cancelled would continue to offer services to customers for four months, during which time the Telecom Authority of Indian (TRAI) would have to decide on the course of a new auction, and publish new guidelines for the same within 2 months.
In view of the arbitrary manner in which the auction was conducted, the SC imposed a penalty of 5 crore on Swan Telecom, Tata Teleservices, and Unitech, ruling that half of the money would to the Supreme Court’s legal aid cell, while the other half was to be given to defense services.
The court observed that but for the initiative of ‘enlightened’ citizens the 2G scam would not even have come to the notice of the public. The Supreme Court was delivering its verdict on a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy, who was recently himself in the dock for writing an inflammatory article against the Muslims. Swamy was however let off in the case after he gave an undertaking that he would not write such articles in future.
Declining to name a Special Investigation Team for probing the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the case, the Supreme Court said that the Trial court should decide on the matter.
The verdict would come as a major blow to the Congress party, its image already tarnished with numerous scams and scandals, and its inability to implement the Lokpal bill. In a recent order the SC had set a deadline of 3 months for the government to grant sanction for proceeding against high ranking officials charged in corruption cases. This was again on a petition filed by Subramanium Swamy.
IANS inputs
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