A. Raja, Kanimozhi acquitted in 2G case

A special court on Thursday acquitted all the accused in the alleged 2G scam, giving a major relief to former Telecom Minister A. Raja in the UPA government and DMK MP Kanimozhi who were jailed on charges of taking kickbacks to issue the telecom spectrum and licences in 2008 at throwaway prices.

Special Judge O.P. Saini said the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate had failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove the charges against 33 persons named in the case. He pulled up the CBI as it had “miserably failed” to prove any charge against any accused in its “well choreographed” chargesheet.

Reacting on the development, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the verdict had proved that all the “massive propaganda against the UPA was without any foundation”. But Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mocked at the Congress for “treating this judgement as some kind of a badge of honour and a certification that it was an honest policy”.

On the other hand, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who was one of the petitioners on whose plea a CBI probe was ordered, said the government should immediately appeal in the Delhi High Court.

The judge said: “Many facts recorded in the chargesheet are factually incorrect, like the Finance Secretary strongly recommending revision of entry fee, deletion of clause of draft Letter of Intent (LoI) by Raja, recommendation of TRAI for entry fees…I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that prosecution has miserably failed to prove any charge against any of the accused, made in its all well choreographed chargesheet. All the accused are acquitted.”

The alleged scam came to light after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its 2010 report claimed that the Telecom Ministry had caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the national exchequer by allocating 2G spectrum and licences to some companies at throwaway prices. Raja was accused of bending and modifying rules for a chosen few and was alleged to have received kickbacks in the form of a Rs 200 crore loan funnelled into DMK’s Kalaingar TV. Raja eventually became the face of the scam. Among the others accused of complicity were DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi and DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal.

In his first reaction after the verdict, a beaming Raja said he was “happy with the judgment”. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the verdict had proved that all the “massive propaganda against the UPA was without any foundation”.

“I don’t want to boast. I think the court’s judgment has to be respected, and I am glad the court has pronounced unambiguously that all this massive propaganda against the UPA was without any foundation.”

But Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mocked at the Congress for “treating this judgement as some kind of a badge of honour and a certification that it was an honest policy”. He said that in 2007-08, spectrum was not given on the basis of auction but on the price discovery mode made in 2001. “The first-come-first-served policy then got converted to first-come-first-pay,” he said.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who took over the Telecom Ministry after Raja’s resignation, called the verdict a “moral and legal victory” for the UPA.