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Relief for Chidambaram, Supreme Court says no evidence against him in 2G case

August 24, 2012

CHIDAMMBARAM

New Delhi, August 24: The Supreme Court has dismissed two petitions against P Chidambaram asking for him to be investigated by the CBI in the telecom scam and to be made co-accused along with former Telecom Minister A Raja.
The verdict offers significant relief for the Finance Minister, whose resignation has been demanded by the main opposition party, the BJP, in the 2G scam, described as India's biggest swindle. "The BJP has wasted the court's time," said senior minister Ambika Soni. She said that the opposition has been dealt "blow after blow" in its attempts to indict Mr Chidambaram.
The cases against Mr Chidambaram had been filed by Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan; they wanted the minister's role in the telecom scam to be studied by the CBI, and for him to be prosecuted. The CBI has repeatedly said there is no evidence to merit an inquiry against the minister in the allocation of mobile network licenses and spectrum in 2008, when A Raja was Telecom Minister. The Supreme Court has said that it has been given no evidence that there was a criminal conspiracy between Mr Chidambaram and Mr Raja, or that the Finance Minister abused his office. "Poor management in allocation of spectrum cannot be said to be the product of criminal conspiracy," the judges said.
They also said that there was no evidence that Mr Chidambaram benefitted financially from any aspect of the scam.

Mr Swamy has said he will seek a review of today's judgement. "I will get the judgement copy and seek a review. This judgement is based on something I did not argue. It says I haven't given evidence of conspiracy, but I have only argued that Chidambaram caused loss to the exchequer," he said.

In 2008, Mr Chidambaram was Finance Minister when then Telecom Minister A Raja allegedly broke the rules to help companies who were ineligible land valuable mobile network licenses at throwaway prices. They were not charged separately for the second-generation or 2G airwaves they would use. Mr Raja ignored advice to conduct an auction for the licenses; he said he would follow a first-come-first-serve policy, but was later jailed for allegedly pushing companies to the head of the line in return for kickbacks. Mr Raja has said in his trial that he kept Mr Chidambaram and the PM informed of all his decisions.

The national auditor has said the telecom scam was worth Rs. 1.76 lakh crore, giving it star billing on a list of scandals that have engulfed the ruling UPA coalition. In February, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 of the licenses given by Mr Raja.

That has allowed the BJP to accuse Mr Chidambaram of dereliction of duty, and the Prime Minister of being permissive of corruption within his cabinet. In the Winter Session of Parliament, the BJP announced a "boycott" of Mr Chidambaram, preventing him from speaking in the House by drowning him out with shouts.

Earlier this week, the BJP walked out of a parliamentary committee studying the telecom scam; its members said that the PM and Mr Chidambaram must be summoned and questioned by the panel. Without their deposition, the BJP said, the committee's attempts to fix accountability for the scam amounted to a charade.

In February this year, a CBI court in Delhi rejected Mr Swamy's request to try Mr Chidambaram for his alleged role in the telecom scam. Mr Swamy then challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court. In his appeal, he said that Mr Chidambaram was as culpable as Mr Raja for the losses caused by the 2G swindle because he was involved in deciding the price of spectrum, and in permitting two companies who received licenses to dilute equity by bringing foreign partners on board, making huge profits virtually overnight.

Mr Swamy said that there was evidence to show that as Finance Minister, Mr Chidambaram's actions merited his prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other criminal laws.

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News Network
January 6,2020

Dehradun, Jan 6: Universities are centres of learning and will not be allowed to become "addas" of politics, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' has said.

The minister was replying to questions from reporters in Haldwani on Sunday about protests against the amended Citizenship Act across university campuses.

"Universities are centres of learning where the country's future is in the making. We cannot let them become addas of politics," Nishank said.

He accused the opposition parties of trying to turn the universities into hotbeds of politics.

The new legislation passed by Parliament aims to grant citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who had taken refuge in India and there is nothing wrong in it, the Union Minister said

"When Pakistan was created, the population of religious minorities there stood at 22 per cent. Today it is a minuscule 3.7 per cent. Persecuted on the basis of their religion, they sought sanctuary in India. The CAA is meant only to grant them citizenship," he said.

Terming the law humanitarian, the minister said it was going to make no difference to the status of Muslims in India and wondered why the Congress was making such a hue and cry about it.

Nishank's press conference in Haldwani was part of the BJP's campaign to create awareness in favour of the amended Citizenship Act.

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News Network
March 11,2020

New Delhi, Mar 11: Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Madhya Pradesh politician whose surprise exit from the Congress has brought the Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday. Scindia joined the BJP at an event in national capital Delhi in the presence of party chief JP Nadda.

Scindia, who was warmly welcomed by Nadda, described 10 March, the day that he exited from the Congress as one of the two life-changing days of his life. The first, he said, was 30 September 2001 when he lost his father. Scindia underscored that the Congress was not the party that it had been and had been living in denial.

Scindia had ended his 18-year-old association with the Congress on Tuesday after meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Scindia’s exit from the Congress was followed by resignation letters by about 22 MLAs who had been sequestered in Karnataka. The resignation letters were, however, sent to the Governor and not the assembly speaker, and threatens to upend the Kamal Nath government which has a wafer-thin majority.

If the resignations are accepted, the effective strength of the MP assembly will come down to 206, leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a slender majority beyond the halfway mark of 103 with its 107 MLAs. For now, the Congress is trying to persuade the MLAs to not pull down the state government.

In his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that Scindia put out on Twitter soon after, he alluded to his discomfort in the party over the last year or so. “...as you well know, this is a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year,” he had written in his letter.

It was seen as a reference to the Congress settling for Kamal Nath as the chief minister after the 2018 state elections though it was Scindia who had led from the front to oust the BJP from Madhya Pradesh. Scindia’s supporters had hoped that the Congress would tell Kamal Nath to give up his second charge - as the party chief in the state - but this also didn’t happen.

The first hint that something was amiss came in November last year when Scindia removed a reference to the Congress in his Twitter bio and instead wrote “public servant and cricket enthusiast”. He had then explained the change to an effort to make the Twitter bio shorter.

Jyotyiraditya Scindia’s aunt Yashodhara Raje Scindia appeared to declare soon after that the 49-year-old would join the BJP when she welcomed his resignation, calling it “ghar wapsi” or homecoming. “Jyotiraditya was being neglected in Congress,” Yashodhara Raje Scindia said.

Scindia’s grandmother, Vijaya Raje Scindia, was one of the founders of the Jana Sangh, the precursor to the BJP. His aunt Vasundhara Raje is a former Union minister and ex-chief minister of Rajasthan and another aunt Yashodhara Raje is a former minister in the Madhya Pradesh cabinet.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

New Delhi, Jul 30: India's gold demand in 2020 is expected to fall to the lowest level in 26 years with domestic bullion prices hitting a record high and as falling disposable incomes could curtail retail purchases, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.

Lower demand by the world's second-biggest bullion consumer could limit a rally in global prices, which hit a record high earlier this month, although it could also reduce India's trade deficit and support the ailing rupee.

"Fast rising gold prices could act as headwinds," said Somasundaram PR, the managing director of WGC's Indian operations.

Local gold futures have jumped 35% so far this year after rising a quarter in 2019.

India's gold consumption in the first half of 2020 plunged 56% on-year to 165.6 tonnes. Meanwhile, the coronavirus-triggered lockdown also slashed demand by 70% in the June quarter to 63.7 tonnes, the lowest in more than a decade, the WGC said in a report published on Thursday.

Millions of Indians have lost their jobs or taken a pay cut after the country imposed a lockdown on its 1.3 billion people to curb the spread of the virus that has infected more than 1.5 million Indians.

Consumption is generally high during the June quarter due to weddings and key festivals such as Akshaya Tritiya, but lockdown restrictions kept shoppers indoors this year.

The weak demand in the first half could drag down India's gold consumption in 2020 to the lowest since 1994, when demand stood at 415 tonnes, Somasundaram said, adding that it is still difficult to provide an estimate for full-year demand as the coronavirus crisis is still unfolding.

"Indian demand has previously jumped as much as 300 tonnes in a quarter. Latent demand could come out in the second half," Somasundaram said.

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