2G: court defers hearing of Swamy’s plea against Chidambaram

A special CBI court in Delhi today deferred to 8 November the hearing of the petition by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy seeking to make union home minister P Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G spectrum allocation case. Chidambaram was the finance minister when allegedly massive irregularities took place in the allocation of spectrum and licences in 2008.                                                                                                                                      The trial court said it wants to wait for the Supreme Court's verdict on Swamy's other plea seeking a Central Bureau of Inquiry probe into Chidambaram's role in failing to rein in former telecom minister A Raja, now in jail. The CBI has so far resisted bringing Chidambaram under its scanner, saying there is nothing to suggest that he could have acted differently.

Swamy had approached the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into the role of Chidambaram in deciding the 2G spectrum price along with Raja.

On 15 September, Swamy had sought to record his testimony afresh before special judge O P Saini, alleging complicity of Chidambaram in spectrum pricing. He had said the court should bring on record purported "new facts" that Chidambaram and former telecom minister A Raja had a role in deciding 2G spectrum prices and entry fee.

"The fact that the above named two ministers together decided that the prices of spectrum and entry fee should be lumped together at the 2001 level and decided against the market price of 2007-08 for the entry fee is confirmed by the speech of the prime minister in Rajya Sabha on 24 February 2011," Swamy had said in his application.

Swamy, who is pursuing a private complaint in the 2G scam, had also sought to examine CBI officials concerned "to establish the nexus of accused persons with others, who have intentionally not been made accused by the prosecuting agency".

Swamy's petition says Chidambaram needs to be questioned on the basis of a now well-publicised note from the finance ministry that finds Chidambaram did not act rigorously enough as finance minister in 2008 to ensure that valuable spectrum was sold at fair prices to companies. Observers have widely seen the note as indicating a long-standing rift between Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the two most senior ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet.