New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to give its judgment on Thursday on the plea seeking probe into the role of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum scam.
The apex court is also slated to give a judgment on whether the 2G licences should be cancelled.
It will further decide if a Special Investigation Team (SIT) should oversee the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The judgements will be pronounced by a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly on the plea for probe against Chidambaram and for cancellation of licences of spectrum on October 10 and March 17 respectively in 2011.
The petitions on the issues were filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy.
The role of Chidambaram in the 2G scam was raised in the Supreme Court by the petitioners who had pointed out that there was evidence on record showing that the decision regarding pricing of spectrum was taken jointly by him and Raja.
A Finance Ministry note to the PMO signed by Pranab Mukherjee was also taken on record by the apex court in which it was stated that the scam could have been averted had Chidambram suggested the policy of auction instead of first-come-first-served policy on allocation of spectrum.
The Centre and CBI had vehemently opposed any probe against Chidambram who was the Finance Minister at the time of allotment of spectrum in 2008.
They had maintained that Chidambaram was not in direct communication with the then Telecom Minister A Raja in determining the price of the radio waves.
However, Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) had refuted the claims of CBI and the Centre that Chidambaram was not in the picture till January, 10, 2008, when the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) headed by Raja issued 122 Letters of Intent (LoIs) to telecom companies without following the policy of auction.
Swamy and CPIL's counsel Prashant Bhushan had contended Chidambaram was "consistently" informed of what was going on and "till November 30, 2007, Chidambaram was apprised of what Raja was up to".
(With Additional Inputs from PTI)
Comments
0 comment