A mountain has delivered, but there’s no baby. The 2G Spectrum case ongoing since 2011 has ended in considerable comfort for the nearly 20 accused, great relief to political entities such as the DMK and the Congress, and significant discomfort to India’s ruling party the Bharatiya Janata Party. It has also raised fresh questions about the efficacy of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) tasked with the probe into this case. What seems obvious is that the ‘caged parrot’ has let down the nation and its people yet again. While the CBI court verdict is not the last word and there is scope for appeal, fears are that the course of justice was deliberately changed in ways as to allow the escape of the accused without inflicting even a scratch on their oversized selves. The truth is not difficult to understand. The 2G Spectrum case involved allegations of massive and criminal flouting of norms, bribe-taking of great proportions and huge benefits supposedly being given to some private telecom companies in the allotment of spectrum and issue of licences by the telecommunications ministry headed by DMK’s A Raja during the UPA period. The ‘presumptive loss’ quoted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was of the order of Rs1.76 lakh crore. There could be arguments over the way this figure was arrived at or projected by the auditor, but there was no doubt that norms were flouted in the allocations and that transparency was a casualty in the allotment process. Now, it would appear that Raja and others got away through the order of the CBI Special Court judge OP Saini simply because the CBI could not file proper charges against the accused during the long past three and a half years since the Modi government took reins of power.
Two important points need to be remembered. First, on 2 February, 2012, the Supreme Court had declared the allotment of spectrum “unconstitutional and arbitrary” and cancelled the 122 licences issued in 2008 to private telecom companies. Second, these spectrum bands were then put up for a so-called transparent auction and they did not fetch any attractive price exceeding the amounts derived earlier. These incidents proved that the CAG’s report might have been thoroughly biased with personal agenda on the part of the officers involved.
Interestingly, now on hindsight it seems the BJP’s anti-corruption slogan that brought the Narendra Damodardas Modi-led party to power at Delhi might have been completely based on falsified narratives.
The Special Court judge’s observation was by itself proof of the way the investigating agency handled the case. “The CBI has miserably failed to prove corruption and money laundering charges,” was how the court put it. Juxtapose this with an observation of the Supreme Court in the past — that, the 2G Spectrum allocation process under the leadership of Raja was “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to public interest, apart from it being violative of the doctrine of equality.” As noted by the CAG, an open auction, instead, would have fetched the exchequer huge amounts of cash. Raja and the UPA claimed that the process they adopted for issue of licences benefited the public by way of “lower” telecom tariffs for the calls they made via their mobile phones. In other words, Raja and the rest turned the tables on the CAG and posed as saviours of public interest. Their claim does not sound unjustified after seeing the developments in the case.
The course open to the CBI, and the Union government, is to go in appeal. But, whether the ‘caged parrot’ can now extricate the situation from the depths to which it has sunk it at the first stage of the court case itself is a matter to ponder. There, rather, is little hope now. Appeal will not allow introduction of any new material evidence in the case, only the arguments may differ.
The CBI was tasked with the investigations at the very start of the unfolding of the events after the CAG observations on the 2G Spectrum issue happened during the UPA II period. During the course of the probe from year 2011 to 2014, the UPA II was at the helm, and from mid 2014 till now, the BJP headed by Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi has been in the government — and, by extension, oversaw the affairs of the CBI. A report now says the CBI concentrated on its probe into policy matters and reduced stress on the criminality involved in the Spectrum licensing, and that this helped in the escape of Raja and others from punishment. If things went wrong in the way the CBI conducted the case, the blame can be partly on the UPA II, but there is little to show that the Modi government attempted any course correction.
The Modi government came to power on the back of allegations of massive fraud in the way the UPA II conducted the affairs of the nation. Issues cited prominently included the 2G Spectrum, the CWG Scam and the Coal Scam, among others, that virtually nailed the Congress and its allies in the 2014 hustings. If there was no such scam, there was no way Modi could have got himself transplanted in Delhi from the outlying capital of Gujarat. People are no more confused today. The falsification of the investigation by the CBI is loud and clear. They can neither trust Modi nor the CBI. Truth, possibly, lies somewhere in between.
It is not difficult to understand where lies the truth. The corporates involved in this deal, in connivance with bureaucrats had carried out the loot. Politicians of that time must have benefited marginally. It is complete ignorance on the part of the common people who believe that politicians alone can do all the corrupt acts. Corruption flows down from the business houses through bureaucrats to the politicians. The sharing of the loot too is in the same order. The same telecom giants and officers could have warned the Modi government not to try and be too clever by half and disturb the set up by setting the CBI cat upon the pigeons. Wilting like a delicate flower, the government has allowed the floundering of the investigation by the agency. Therein lies the story.