The Supreme Court (SC) will on Monday hear two petitions on the
spectrum scam.
The first is a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), an NGO that has waged a sustained war against A Raja for the spectrum sale.
The second petition is from former union law minister Subramanium Swamy.
For the whole of last week, the opposition had stalled parliament demanding Raja’s removal.
The move came after reports that CAG had indicted Raja for causing a revenue loss of more than Rs1.76 lakh crore during the sale of 2G spectrum.
The CPIL is gearing up to expose the telecom ministry’s involvement. When its appeal comes up for hearing, CPIL may draw the attention of judges to the nexus between investigating agencies, government lawyers and Raja.
An uncontested news report suggests that top government lawyers engaged by the CBI and the telecom ministry met Raja’s lawyers recently. Some CBI investigators were also reported to have attended the meeting. It was after this meeting that the department of telecommunications filed its affidavit.
At the previous hearing, Raja’s counsel had said that his response to the court notice would be made known only after hearing the government’s stand. There are several loopholes in the DoT affidavit, a lawyer privy to the CPIL case said.
It has been held by the SC that an appropriate court (in this case the spex court), can monitor the investigation to prevent it from being “influenced” by the government. Using this principle, the Supreme Court had set up the special investigating team to probe the Gujarat riots. This was done as it had been alleged that the Gujarat government was responsible for the violence, thus no fair play was expected from its investigators or its prosecutors.
Interestingly, Swamy’s petition on the spectrum scam says immunity from prosecution is guaranteed to bureaucrats and public servants for omissions and commissions. Taking a bribe is not duty and a minister or his aides can’t take shelter under a provision that gives them immunity from prosecution.
