Supreme Court Justice GS Singhvi, who had cancelled 122 licences allocated by former Telecom Minister A Raja in 2012, on Friday said the cases related to the 2G spectrum allocation presented before the top court and the Central Bureau of Investigation court were “completely different”. On Thursday, a special Delhi court had acquitted Raja, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi, former Telecom Secretary Sidharth Behura, and Raja’s private secretary RK Chandolia, among others in the 2G scam.
In 2012, the Supreme Court bench had questioned the “first-come-first serve-policy” that the government employed and the fixing of cut-off dates, and declared that auctioning was the only logical way to allocate the 2G spectrum.
The Supreme Court had criticised Raja, saying he had “virtually gifted away the important national asset at throw away prices”.
“The issue before the Supreme Court was the allocation of spectrum without auction – the fundamental principle of distribution of natural resources through auction,” he told NDTV. “Whether there was a conspiracy in spectrum allocation and any corruption was not before us – that was for the CBI court to decide,” Singhvi said.
However, the judge further questioned the special court’s ruling acquitting all the accused in the case. “The government at the first instance after auction said it got Rs 65,000 crores. Now, it said there was no loss of revenue. Who did it? It is for the people to decide,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kanimozhi claimed the DMK was blamed unnecessarily in the case. “The whole case was based on a notional loss,” Kanimozhi told the on Friday. “What we have been saying all these years, is what finally the judge said.”
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