Chidambaram not part of 2G scam, rules court

Bringing some relief to a scam-beleaguered government, Justice O P Saini of the special CBI court trying the 2G spectrum case today ruled that home minister P Chidambaram could not be made an accused in the case.

The Supreme Court, while cancelling 122 telecom licences granted to various operators after January 2008 on Thursday, had referred the plea for a probe into Chidambaram's role back to the trial court.

Rejecting the petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy to make Chidambaram a co-accused in the case, Justice Saini pronounced before a packed courtroom this afternoon that no case can be made out against Chidambaram.

The judge also denied a second plea by Swamy for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the role of Chidambaram, who was finance minister in 2008, in what is said to be the biggest scam in Independent India's history.

Swamy did not seem too perturbed when he talked to the media outside the court; though he said he was ''surprised'' by the verdict and would appeal it in the high court within three months.

Swamy has earlier argued before the courts that it was Chidambaram's job as finance minister in 2008 to prevent former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja (now in jail for over a year) from his spree of crooked spectrum and licence sale at bargain-basement prices.