Supreme Court piles pressure on PM Manmohan Singh; asks for detailed affidavit

With the opposition holding fast to its demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam and the Supreme Court taking an unusually tough stand on the issue of Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy’s complaint, prime minister (PM) Manmohan Singh is caught in a politically dicey situation.

To step up the pressure on the PM, the opposition paralysed Parliament’s proceedings for the eighth day running on Thursday, and, to complete the embarrassment, the apex court directed the prime minister’s office (PMO) to file a detailed affidavit relating to the sequence of developments that took place in dealing with Swamy’s letter.

On Tuesday, the court had expressed bewilderment over the ‘silence’ of the PM and the 16-month delay in responding to Swamy’s plea and termed it later as ‘premature’.

On Thursday, when solicitor-general Gopal Subramanyam informed the court that the government had the entire correspondence between Swamy and the PMO, a bench of justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly was not satisfied. The reasons for the inordinate delay must be specified, it said, directing an official of the PMO to file the affidavit by Saturday.

“What happened between November 29, 2008 and October 21, 2010?” the bench wanted to know. It is understandable to await the outcome of a pending inquiry, and defer a decision on a private petition seeking sanction to prosecute a minister. But why was it silent for so long in lodging an FIR against an “unnamed person”, it asked.  

The Janata Party chief said the PM had acted in defiance of an apex court judgment saying the appropriate authority alone could deal with the plea for sanction to prosecute under section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It was bizarre that the PMO had forwarded his letter to the same person (Raja) against whom he had sought the sanction to prosecute in the mammoth scandal.

Refuting Swamy’s charges, Subramanyam said that every communication from the PMO on 2G spectrum allocation was dealt with the highest propriety.

While law minister M Veerappa Moily sought to dismiss the queries about the court asking the PMO to file an affidavit, legal experts feel it is an embarrassment for the PM. The apex court asking either the PMO or the PM to file an affidavit regarding its inaction or silence could be ‘first of its kind’, they opined.