2G case verdict: Jaitley slams Congress, says party treating this judgment as ‘badge of honour’

Union Finance Minister Jaitley further said that the Supreme Court had in 2012 quashed the policy as arbitrary and unfair. (Express photo: Praveen jain)

Shortly after the 2G spectrum allocation case verdict was pronounced by a special CBI court in New Delhi on Thursday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today slammed the Congress for treating this judgment as a ‘badge of honour’. In a statement to the media, Jaitley said: “Congress leaders are treating this judgement as some kind of a badge of honour and a certification that it was an honest policy. This was a corrupt and dishonest policy, which has already been upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012.”

Jaitley further said that the Supreme Court had in 2012 quashed the policy as arbitrary and unfair. “Each and every case of spectrum allocation was quashed by SC (in 2012) as arbitrary and unfair, the policy was quashed as unfair and intended to cause loss to Government of India and the govt was directed to have a fresh policy by which an auction would take place.” Also Read: CBI court acquits A Raja, Kanimozhi and all other accused

The #2GScam is not a certificate for the 2G allocation policy being an honest policy. The Supreme Court in 2012 had upheld the policy as corrupt, dishonest, arbitrary, unfair & intended to cause loss to the exchequer. All 2G license allocations were quashed : Shri @arunjaitley pic.twitter.com/RmUKpzwlJV

— BJP (@BJP4India) December 21, 2017

Meanwhile, in his judgment, Judge Saini castigated the CBI for “misreading” the case. “The end result of the above discussion is that I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any charge against any of the accused, made in its well-choreographed chargesheet. There is no evidence on the record produced before the court indicating any criminality in the acts allegedly committed by the accused persons. There is no material on record to show that A Raja was the mother lode of conspiracy in the instant case. There is also no evidence of his no-holds-barred immersion in any wrongdoing, conspiracy or corruption,” Saini observed. Also Read: This is why A Raja, Kanimozhi and others have been acquitted

A special court today acquitted 17 accused, including former telecom minister A Raja and DMK leader Kanimozhi in the Enforcement Directorate’s money laundering case relating to the 2G scam. Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, Special Judge O P Saini also acquitted Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Asif Balwa, Rajiv Aggarwal, Karim Morani, P Amirtham and Sharad Kumar in connection with the case.