New Delhi:
Subramanian Swamy, who says he is determined to have P Chidambaram investigated for his alleged role in the telecom scam, scored big points in court today.
The CBI has been ordered to share with Mr Swamy a file that has letters exchanged by Mr Chidambaram with former Telecom Minister A Raja. Mr Swamy, who is the Janta Party President, says the file with these letters was deliberately withheld from court by the CBI. "This file is very crucial for the angle of corruption in the 2G (telecom) scam," he said.
In 2008, when Mr Raja was Telecom Minister and allegedly used his office to orchestrate India's biggest swindle, Mr Chidambaram was Finance Minister. Mr Swamy contends that the decisions taken by Mr Raja were endorsed by Mr Chidambaram, and he should therefore share responsibility for the scam, and be formally investigated by the CBI.
Mr Raja has been arrested; the CBI is handling the case against him and 13 others accused of criminal conspiracy. The Supreme Court is monitoring the CBI's investigation; a special court headed by Judge OP Saini is handling the trial.
The file that Mr Swamy has been given access to contains the correspondence between Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja from September 2008 - when companies began applying for licenses and second-generation or 2G spectrum - to December 2008. The licenses were awarded by Mr Raja in January 2008 to companies he has been accused of conspiring with. Among them were Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless.
The file has letters, other official records and memos that include the ministers' views on the permission that Mr Raja granted to Swan and Unitech Wireless to dilute their equity by bringing foreign partners on board. Mr Chidambaram and other ministers have said that the transactions were legitimate - the companies did not sell stake, they created fresh equity, acceptable according to the guidelines for telecom policy at the time. The profits ran into thousands of crores.
Experts say the willingness of foreign firms to pay such huge amounts for their equity proves that the licenses had been deliberately under-valued by Mr Raja.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid sprang to Mr Chidambaram's defence today. "He will do only what is absolutely correct by the book...it causes distress to know that our law which we respect so much, which we feel comfort about can be so easily manipulated by somebody who has a personal angst about something," he said, referring to Mr Swamy.