Probe against Maran over, CBI tells Supreme court

0
164

The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned till tomorrow hearing on a petition by Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy seeking a probe against Home Minister P Chidambaram for his role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

 

The apex court asked for all documents pertaining to the then finance secretary Subba Rao to be submitted before it.

 

Even as the SC adjourned the hearing, the CBI today filed in the SC a status report on the probe against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran in the 2G scam.

 

The investigating agency told the apex court that it will file a FIR against Maran soon.

 

The SC also heard senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s arguments who had filed an affidavit alleging that the CBI did not honestly conducted investigations against Maran.

 

The CBI had on September 1 told the Supreme Court that Maran, who was the telecom minister during the UPA-1 rule, wasn’t found to have coerced in finalising the sale of Aircel to Malaysia-based Maxis group.

 

The agency also claimed that there was prima facie no element of coercion found in licences issued between 2001 and 2007.

 

During the hearing on Tuesday, the CBI had objected to the Central government telling the SC that it will examine documents given by Subramanian Swamy indicating that Chidambaram, as the then finance minister in 2008, was also involved in fixing the second generation (2G) spectrum price.

 

Swamy is seeking a CBI probe against Chidambaram alleging that the spectrum price was not decided by jailed former communications minister A Raja alone but was jointly fixed by the two.

 

The SC had yesterday adjourned the hearing on Swamy’s plea till today as Prashant Bhushan sought time to make out a case for the setting up of a Special Investigation Team to monitor the case.

 

The Supreme  court bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly was yesterday told that the 15 documents presented by Swamy were part of the 500 documents in a file that have already been perused by the CBI and the report was already with the special court trying the 2G scam case.

 

Senior counsel KK Venugopal, appearing for the probe agency, took exception to the Central government telling the apex court that the “new documents filed for the first time before this court will naturally be studied and considered by the CBI as usual and may be covered in the next status report (to the apex court)”.

 

“Nobody can put in our mouth what we are going to do. We are autonomous and independent of the government,” Venugopal said.

 

Venugopal told the court that except for the latest letter from the Finance Ministry, the agency had looked into and examined all other documents.

 

The court was told that even the latest letter of the ministry was the compilation of the documents that were already in the know of the agency.

 

The senior counsel was referring to the March 26 office memorandum sent by Finance Ministry Deputy Director PGS Rao to Joint Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office, Vinni Mahajan.

 

Senior counsel PP Rao, appearing for the government, argued for an end to the apex court monitoring of the 2G matter pertaining to main conspiracy case.

 

He said that after the trial court of CBI Special Judge OP Saini had taken cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the CBI, the monitoring should have stopped.

 

Senior counsel Sushil Kumar, appearing for former communications minister A Raja, said that any order by the apex court would prolong the proceedings of the trial court and consequently delay the bail of his client.

 

“Look at our plight. Trial is not on. Investigation is not complete. We are suffering,” said Sushil Kumar.

 

Swamy earlier sought a CBI probe against Chidambaram and said that on the 2G spectrum pricing “Raja and Chidambaram had the meeting of mind” and “will it be fair on one accused to take all the blame

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *