New Delhi:  The government can exhale. A trial court has ruled that P Chidambaram will not be tried for criminal culpability in the telecom scam. Judge OP Saini delivered his verdict shortly after 1.30 this afternoon to a packed court-room.  Today's judgement allows the government to re-claim some of the credibility and moral authority it seemed to lose this week when the Supreme Court  cancelled 122 mobile network licenses issued in 2008, the crux of India's biggest swindle.
 
Judge OP Saini, who is handling the telecom trial, said in a packed courtroom, "Prayer of Swamy to make Chidambaram an accused is dismissed"; and so rejected a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who had asked for Mr Chidambaram to be made a co-accused in the telecom scam, which was allegedly fathered by A Raja during his infamous term as Telecom Minister. (10 big facts about today's verdict)
 
Mr Swamy said that he was surprised by the order but not "disappointed, this is part of the game."  He also said that he would appeal against today's judgement in the High Court. (Watch: Subramanian Swamy reacts after the verdict)
 
Mr Chidambaram was at his Delhi home all morning. He was seen leaving his house only after the judgement was delivered and is reported to have driven straight to the airport; he was scheduled to visit Tamil Nadu today. Mr Chidambaram is yet to react to today's judgement, but his colleague Kapil Sibal said the government expected this.
 
The government's relief is palpable as it says that Subramanian Swamy's petition was politically motivated. About Mr Swamy's decision to appeal in a higher court against today's order, Mr Sibal said, "He'll go to High Court, then Supreme Court, then he'll perhaps appeal to God!" And Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari said there was no question of Mr Chidambaram accepting moral responsibility
 
Mr Swamy has argued that it was Mr Chidambaram's job as Finance Minister in 2008 to prevent Mr Raja from his spree of crooked licensing, which saw companies who were ineligible getting mobile network licenses at clearance prices.  Mr Raja threw in second-generation or 2G spectrum for free.  Mr Swamy says that Mr Chidambaram was privy to the decisions that Mr Raja took on issues like the pricing of spectrum.
 
But the BJP says it will wait for Mr Swamy's appeals in higher courts. The party's Ravi Shankar Prasad also said they would continue to demand political accountability. The BJP and other opposition parties have sought Mr Chidambaram's resignation and had boycotted the Home minister in the last Winter Session of Parliament over the 2G scam. The BJP has also this week sought answers from the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi, saying the entire Manmohan Singh government is collectively responsible for the 2G scam.(Watch)
 
This was after the Supreme Court, two days ago, refused to agree to another petition filed by Mr Swamy that asked for the CBI investigate Mr Chidambaram's role in the telecom scam. The two-judge bench had asked Judge OP Saini's trial court to decide on that request within two weeks. But in another crucial judgement on Thursday, the Supreme Court had cancelled 122 telecom licenses issued by Mr Raja in 2008. It said using a first-come-first-serve policy to allocate national resources like airwaves is "fundamentally flawed", dangerous, and designed to benefit any one "with access to power corridors."
 
The court, however, placed the blame firmly on Mr Raja. It said Mr Raja knew that Finance Ministry officials did not approve of his pricing of licenses and spectrum, and he deliberately chose not to consult with either Mr Chidambaram or his department.
 
The government maintains that those verdicts are not an indictment of either its governance or the Prime Minister and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Instead, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal argued that the first-come-first-serve policy used by Mr Raja has been faulted by the court, and for this, the BJP must apologise to the country.
 
Critics of Mr Chidambaram found their case vastly strengthened late last year when a note sent by the Finance Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office was exhumed by a Right to Information application.  Written in March last year, the note post-mortemed the events of 2008, and was meant to serve as an inter-department backgrounder.  But it made the point that the Finance Ministry should have done more to enforce an auction upon Mr Raja.  The Prime Minister was forced to respond that Mr Chidambaram enjoyed his confidence as Finance Minister in 2008, and continues to do so now. But the damage was done.
 
Mr Chidambaram has in his defence said that he tried at various points to insist that Mr Raja hold an auction to ensure that this scarce resource was sold at market prices.

Tags: 2G case, 2G scam, A Raja, Chidambaram, Chidambaram verdict, P Chidambaram, Subramanian Swamy