2G: Swamy wins a round in battle to indict Chidambaram

The special CBI court in New Delhi trying the 2G spectrum allocation case today allowed Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy to become a witness in his own complaint against home minister P Chidambaram in the 2G case, possibly paving the way for Chidambaram to be made an accused in the case.

The court told Swamy to appear as a witness on 17 December and make his statement. The court will then decide on Swamy's plea to examine witnesses to establish Chidambaram's alleged complicity in the second generation (2G) spectrum allocation case.

For several months now, Swamy has been seeking to make Chidambaram a party in the case. Chidambaram was the finance minister when the alleged scam in spectrum pricing and distribution took place in 2008-09. Swamy says the decision on spectrum pricing was taken jointly by him and former telecom minister A Raja, who has been in custody for over seven months now.

"Charges should also be framed against P Chidambaram. Accordingly, the process for it should be initiated," Swamy told the court.

He added that the official documents given to him by the Central Bureau of Investigation following a court order establish that four meetings took place between Chidambaram and Raja, in which a decision was taken to keep spectrum prices at the 2001 level.

On 17 November, the CBI handed over to Swamy a department of telecommunications (DoT) file containing over 400 pages of file notings and 2G related deliberations between the finance ministry and the ministry of telecommunications.