New Delhi, Dec 21: In a huge relief for former telecom minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi and others accused in the alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Thursday acquitted all of them. It took judge OP Saini just a few minutes to read out the operational part of his 1552-page verdict.
Saini said that the CBI, which was probing the case, had “no clue what it was investigating”. | 2G Scam: All You Need to Know
Moments after the court’s verdict, former telecom minister Kapil Sibal slammed ex-CAG Vinod Rai for presenting a figure of Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss due to the alleged scam.”Aaj meri baat siddh ho gayi, koi corruption nahi, koi loss nahi. Agar scam hai to jhooth ka scam hai, vipaksh aur Vinod Rai ke jhooth ka. Vinod Rai ko desh ke saamne maafi maangni chahiye. (I stand vindicated. There is no scam…no loss. Vinod Rai should apologise to the nation),” Kapil Sibal told reporters in New Delhi.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was blamed by the BJP-led Opposition of turning a blind eye towards the wrongdoings of his cabinet colleague A Raja during the UPA’s rule, also hailed the court’s verdict while accusing the Opposition of ‘vicious propaganda’.
“We respect the court’s verdict. I am glad that the court has pronounced that the massive propaganda against UPA was without any foundation,” Manmohan Singh told reporters outside Parliament.
Highlights of Court’s Verdict:
1. The chargesheet of the instant case is based mainly on misreading, selective reading, non-reading and out of the context reading of official records.
2. There is no evidence on the record produced before the court indicating any criminality in the acts allegedly committed by the accused persons relating to fixation of cutoff date, manipulation of first-come-first-serve policy.
3. No understanding of the official notes by outside agency (CBI) creates an impression of wrongdoing.
4. Guidelines have been framed in such technical language that meaning of many terms are not clear even to DoT officers, how can they blame companies/others for violation of the same.
The alleged scam on the issuance of licences and allocation of 2G spectrum by the Department of Telecom occurred during the Congress-led UPA government’s first tenure in 2008 but was widely reported in 2010 following a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) which pegged the loss to exchequer at Rs 1.76 lakh crore.