Union home minister and the Centre virtually came out as the “winners” in a seething legal battle launched by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy to make P. Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G scam case as a special CBI court on Saturday gave him a “clean chit”, ruling that there was “no evidence” of any criminal conspiracy by him.
Dismissing Mr Swamy’s application for CBI probe against Mr Chidambaram, special judge O.P. Saini said, “Any innocent and innocuous acts done in association with others do not make one a partner in the crime.”
The special court holding trial in the case rejected Mr Swamy’s plea that Mr Chidambaram as finance minister was equally “culpable” for fixing the 2G-spectrum price at `1,650 crores in January 2008 “jointly” with Raja in UPA-I. In fact, `1,650 crores was a far low entry fee for the 2G licence as it was determined eight years back in 2001 and thus they had caused huge loss to the exchequer. The judge, however, said there was “no merit” in the application, nor was there any material on record to show that Mr Chidambaram acted in “malafide” manner while fixing the 2G spectrum price as finance minister. “There is no material on record to show that P. Chidambaram was acting malafide in fixing the price of spectrum at the 2001 level or in permitting dilution of equity by the two companies (Swan and Unitech). These two acts are not per se illegal and there is no material on record to show any other incriminating act on his part,” the judge said.
Swamy, who is both a complainant and a witness in the case, submitted a number of certified documents in a bid to prove his allegations that the home minister can be charged under the same provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, which were applied to Raja, who has been made a key accused in the case by the CBI.
Swamy had alleged that these documents “reveal the connivance, collusion and consent of then finance minister P. Chidambaram in the decisions taken by then communications minister A. Raja on the matter of fixing the price of spectrum licences.”
He had further stated that Raja and Chidambaram were “empowered” by a Cabinet decision on October 31, 2003 to determine the spectrum price jointly and the then finance minister was aware of this “empowerment”, hence he could not escape the responsibility.
In pursuance of this empowerment, the two ministers had met on four occasions to discuss the fixation of the 2G price and finally apprised the PM of their decision to maintain it at the 2001 level, Swamy had alleged.
After perusing all the documents submitted by Swamy, judge Saini ruled “anybody and everybody associated with a decision (making process) in any degree cannot be roped in as an accused. Innocent and innocuous acts done in association with others do not make one a partner in crime, unless there is material to indicate otherwise, which is lacking in this case.”