New Delhi:
A trial court in Delhi will today pronounce its order on a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy in the 2G scam case, seeking to examine two witnesses. Mr Swamy wants Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to be made a co-accused in the scam.
The Janata Party leader had recently claimed that he had proof that Mr Chidambaram, who was then the Finance Minister, and former Telecom Minister A Raja acted together in fixing 2G spectrum prices in 2008.
As part of the process of establishing Mr Chidambaram's alleged role, Mr Swamy is seeking the court's permission to examine two witnesses - a Joint Director of the CBI and a Joint Secretary in the Finance Ministry. He says he wants to confront them with certain documents, which, he says will help him prove Mr Chidambaram's alleged role. The court will today decide on whether permission can be granted to Mr Swamy to examine these officials. Mr Swamy says if he gets the go-ahead, it will be a major step forward in his case against Mr Chidambaram.
Mr Swamy has also moved the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe against Chidambaram. An order on that petition is still awaited.
Mr Swamy contends that in 2008, when Mr Raja was the Telecom Minister and allegedly used his office to orchestrate India's biggest swindle - better known as the 2G scam, Mr Chidambaram as the Finance Minister had endorsed the decisions taken by Mr Raja and he should therefore share responsibility for the scam, and be formally investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Mr Raja was arrested in February this year; the CBI is handling the case against him and 13 others accused of criminal conspiracy. Everyone except Mr Raja and former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura have been granted bail. The Supreme Court is monitoring the CBI's investigation; a special court headed by Judge OP Saini is handling the trial.
In his efforts to prove Mr Chidambaram's alleged role in the scam, Mr Swamy has released what he says is a Finance Ministry document that cites a meeting between Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja on the pricing issue. The document has the Finance Secretary's notings mentioning two meetings between P Chidambaram and A Raja on May 29, 2008 and June 12, 2008 to resolve outstanding issues relating to allocation and pricing of 2G and 3G spectrum bands.
It says, "Spectrum usage charge is pegged to the bandwidth and is calibrated as a percentage of the Adjusted Gross Revenue [AGR]. In view of historical legacy reasons and the administrative issues involved in changing an established practice, it was decided to continue with the current practice of levying spectrum usage charges on the basis of varying percentage of AGR for different bandwidths of spectrum."
On pricing of spectrum for 2G allocations, the document states, "It has been agreed that the "base price" shall be determined by taking the entry fee of Rs 1650 crore [determined in 2003-04] for pan-India operation of UASL licensees as the price of spectrum for 6.2 mhz of bandwidth for GSM operators [a similar exercise is possible for CDMA operators also]. This translates to an embedded price of Rs. 266 crore/mhz [for pan India operation]"
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has decided to boycott Mr Chidambaram during the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. They are demanding his resignation over his alleged role in the 2G matter.