SC: Why did PM take so long to act?

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As the government laid before Parliament the CAG report on the 2G spectrum controversy on Tuesday, the Supreme Court questioned the Prime Minister taking 16 months to respond to an application for the grant of sanction to prosecute former communications minister A. Raja and the CBI taking 11 months to register the case after the matter was brought to the notice of the PM.

Saying that the Prime Minister’s “silence” for such a long time was “troubling” the court, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly allowed solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam time till November 18 to examine the entire record and report back the correct factual position to explain the reasons for the abnormal delay.
Examining threadbare the Prime Minister’s March 19, 2010 letter to Janata Party president and former Union law minister Subramanian Swamy in response to his November 29, 2008 application seeking sanction for Mr Raja’s prosecution in the face of several alleged irregularities pointed in the interim report of the telecom auditor, the court said the delay of 16 months “is troubling us”.
The court specifically asked the solicitor-general what had happened between November 29, 2008 and March 19, 2010 when the reply was sent. “Sixteen months is not a reasonable period,” the bench observed.
“His (Swamy’s) right to seek sanction does not depend on the ifsy dixy of the sanctioning authority (PM in this case). It should have said ‘yes or no’, but to say that the right has not matured....”
As the senior law officer interjected at this stage to say that the letter did not say that the sanction had been “denied”, Justice Ganguly drew his attention to the phraseology and language of the letter, particularly, its last paragraph, which said that the demand for sanction was “premature”.
“You look at the language of the letter... when such a letter is coming from the high constitutional authority, the language should be very carefully used,” Justice Ganguly pointed out.
The PM, in his reply to Dr Swamy’s complaint, had said the CBI had registered the case on October 21, 2009 and the matter was being investigated by the agency, and the issue of grant of sanction would arise only after perusal of the material.
“The PM could have clearly stated that there is no sufficient material for him to make up his mind but he is saying that it (demand for sanction) has not matured. It was open for the sanctioning authority in this case to refer the complaint to the A-G (attorney-general). We are not advising it... but it is troubling us,” the bench said.
Responding to government counsel’s argument that there has to be a “value judgment” by the sanctioning authority and the PM in his letter had clearly told Dr Swamy that the CBI had registered a case on October 21, 2009, the court said the “value judgment has to be viewed in the light of his (PM’s) ‘silence’ for 16 months”.
The bench pointed out that Dr Swamy’s complaint had raised some serious questions about the grant of spectrum licence to Swan Telecom in view of Reliance Communications Ltd having some shares in the company, making it “ineligible”.
“Something interesting has come in Swamy’s complaint in clause 8 relating to Swan... these facts are self-explanatory... the complainant (Swamy) has given specific instances of alleged wrongdoings by respondent 2 (Raja) in the case of Swan,” the bench pointed out to the solicitor-general, explaining that it could have been sufficient for the PM to decide on the issue.