Historic judgement in the 2G case

A historic day for India’s democracy. Hope is still alive for the Indian Republic. Full text of the 2G judgement is available here. But I can’t resist posting a few words from the Supreme Court order.

(To understand how big a loot of public money the 2G scam has been, read this article written more than a year ago)

So here we go: 

“The material produced before the Court shows that the Minister of C&IT wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the Public Exchequer….”

“…This arbitrary action of the Minister of C&IT though appears to be innocuous was actually intended to benefit some of the real estate companies who did not have any experience in dealing with telecom services……”

“The cut off date…….was not made public …… and the first-come-first served principle, which was being followed since 2003 was changed by him at the last moment …..This enabled some of the applicants, who had access either to the Minister or the officers of the DoT to get the bank drafts etc. prepared towards performance guarantee etc. of about 1600 crores……..”

“The manner in which the exercise for grant of LoIs to the applicants was conducted on ....... leaves no room for doubt that every thing was stage managed to favour those who were able to know in advance change in the implementation of the first-come-first served principle. As a result of this, some of the companies which had submitted applications in 2004 or 2006 were pushed down in the priority and those who had applied between August and September 2007 succeeded in getting higher seniority entitling them to allocation of spectrum on priority basis….”

And this:

“…….we consider it imperative to observe that but for the vigilance of some enlightened citizens who held important constitutional and other positions and discharge their duties in larger public interest and Non Governmental Organisations who have been constantly fighting for clean governance and accountability of the constitutional institutions, unsuspecting citizens and the Nation would never have known how scarce natural resource spared by the Army has been grabbed by those who enjoy money power and who have been able to manipulate the system”

And this:

Respondent Nos………who were benefited by a wholly arbitrary and unconstitutional action taken by the DoT for grant of UAS Licences and allocation of spectrum in 2G band and who off-loaded their stakes for many thousand crores in the name of fresh infusion of equity or transfer of equity shall pay …….. Respondent Nos. …………too had been benefited by the wholly arbitrary and unconstitutional exercise undertaken by the DoT for grant of UAS Licences and allocation of spectrum in 2G band…..”

(Emphasis mine in all the above paragraphs).