Former Finance minister P Chidambaram was quoted as saying, "One thing is clear that the allegations of a major scam involving highest levels of government was not true or correct."

Among acquitted businessmen include Essar Group promoters Ravi Kant Ruia, Anshuman Ruia and Loop telecom promoters IP Khaitan, Kiran Khaitan and four others. Among the acquitted businessmen is Swan Telecom's promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka. Vijay Aggarwal, lawyer for Swan Telecom said, “the Court said that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any of its charge. Thus all accused are acquitted.”

The prosecution examined 154 witnesses. Statements of people like Anil Ambani, Tina Ambani, corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and many more were examined and compiled into a report as big as 4400 pages.

THE CASE:

The 2G spectrum case relates to government permission for a 2007-08 2G spectrum licence allocations, which resulted in a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer, a figure computed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

The charges were framed in October 2011, and indicted the politicians under several provisions of the IPC and preventionof corruption Act, for offences as serious as criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, using genuine fake docuemnts, abusing official position, criminal misconduct by a public servant and taking bribes.

The chargesheet filed in April 2011 against Raja, Kanimozhi and other said that the 2G scam resulted in a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer for a wrongful allocation of 122 licenses.

The Supreme Court in a ruling on February 2 2012 scrapped the allotment of these licenses.

KANIMOZHI and RAJA

Kanimozhi's release saw DMK's senior leader Durai Murugan saying, "victory begins now. With political motives this case was put in us. Conspiracies were hatched against us but all have been blown away now."

Raja maintained through the trial that every decision was for public interest. "I introduced new players, increased teledensity and brought down tariffs," he had conceded.

There was no personal benefit to him, he claimed.

Kanimozhi has been accused of being involved in “parking” of the alleged illegal gratification of Rs 200 crore in Kalaignar TV. However, Kanimozhi argued that she was a director of Kalaignar TV for only two weeks, from June 6 to June 20, 2007.

Kanimozhi, who looked visibly elated after the verdict, shared with twitterati, “I would love to thank everyone who stood by me."

Who is to blame? 

The court's decision resulted in surprise as well as sarcastic responses from twitterati. 

Veteran journalist Sucheta Dalal, shared on twitter, "Lol.... Shock! so there was no 2G scam at all. But hey, nobody killed Aarushi, nobody (was) responsible for stampedes, (and) weren't we naive to think there was a 2G scam? !!"

Back to a prominent question- where is the "1.76 lakh crore"?

Twitterati also questioned the claim of Zero Loss, propounded first by Kapil Sibal, the telecom minister in 2011. He said that 2G scam was a "zero loss" to the nation. Rajeev Chandrashekhar, current Rajya Sabha MP, had back then called it as a "bizzare arithmetic".

Rajeev opined that the 2G cellular lincesing scam must be investigated as a serious white collar crime and even the roles of regulators such as the TRAI (Telecom regulatory Authority of India) must be verified.

His editorial A false ring to it published with the Hindustan Times on May 18 2010, reads, "The practice of stuffing independent regulators like TRAI with retired or serving bureaucrats has made them a second bureaucracy with little or no will to establish and affirm their independence from politics."