The PMO on Saturday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clear his position on the alleged “delay” in deciding an application for grant of sanction to prosecute former telecom minister A. Raja in the 2G spectrum scam case. It stated that as per the law ministry’s opinion the decision on the issue could only be determined after the CBI had collected evidence, oral or documentary.
The affidavit also revealed that Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy was not alone in seeking sanction from the PM to prosecute Mr Raja — two MPs, Gurudas Dasgupta and Sravaran Sudhakar Reddy — had also written to Dr Singh. Besides, advocate Anil Gopal Variath, founder of “Law Focus”, had sent a petition to the President seeking sanction for the prosecution of Mr Raja.
These communications were received by the government between November 29, 2008 and February 19, 2009. Dr Swamy’s letter, which is in focus in the Supreme Court, was sent on November 29, 2008.
Though the affidavit gave long details quoting the different dates when the PM perused these communications and when they were sent to DoT, DoPT and the Department of Legal Affairs in the law ministry, it admitted that the final reply to Dr Swamy was sent only after 16 months, on March 19, 2010.
The “16-month delay and silence” on Dr Swamy’s application was the main reason for the apex court bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly to seek an affidavit on behalf of the PM.
“On March 18, 2010 PMO conveyed the direction to DoPT to send an appropriate reply at an appropriate level. In the circumstances, a reply to the petitioner (Dr Swamy) was sent by DoPT on March 19, 2010,” said the affidavit filed by V. Vidyavati, a director in the PMO.
The affidavit said the letters of Dr Swamy, Mr Gurudas Dasgupta, Mr S. Sudhakar Reddy and Mr Variath’s petition to the President were referred to the law ministry on May 29, 2009 for “legal opinion”. In between, three more letters were received from Dr Swamy — on May 30, October 23 and October 31, 2009 — and these were also sent to the law ministry.
The law ministry gave its final advice to the PMO on February 8, 2010, stating that from the subsequent letters of Dr Swamy it was noticed that he wanted to rely on the action and investigation of the CBI to “collaborate and strengthen” the allegations against Mr Raja. “It is specifically mentioned in the letter of October 31, 2009 by Swamy that the FIR was registered by the CBI and the substance of the allegation made by him in the letter are already under investigation. If it is so, then it may be stated that the decision to accord sanction for prosecution my be determined only after the perusal of the evidence (oral or documentary) collected by the CBI and other materials to be provided to the competent authority (the PM).”
The PMO, accordingly, prepared a note on the law ministry’s advice and sent it to the DoPT to reply to Dr Swamy on these lines. The reply was finally sent on March 19, 2010.
This DoPT letter, written on behalf of the PM to Dr Swamy, is the focus of the Supreme Court in questioning the PMO’s “16-month delay and silence” on the issue.
The letter stated that the CBI was already investigating the case and, since there was no sufficient material on record (when the letter was written), Dr Swamy’s plea for sanction was “premature”.
While pointing towards the 16 months taken to respond to Dr Swamy, the top court had asked how much time the PMO would consider appropriate for “maturing” a request for prosecution of a public servant when there was substantial material against him.
In this context the court had referred to its judgment in the Jain hawala case fixing a three-month limit as “appropriate” for granting sanction by a competent authority and providing for an extension of one month at the most.
The affidavit also stated that after sending the reply to Dr Swamy on March 19, 2010, four other letters from him — of March 20, June 9, August 30 and October 5, 2010 — were received by the PMO. Of these, three were sent to the law ministry for its opinion while that of August 30 was recorded in the file as there was nothing new in it.
The Supreme Court has fixed November 23 for examining the affidavit filed by the PMO.