CBI refuses to probe Chidu, opposes SC monitoring

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation today informed the Supreme Court that it is not necessary to investigate Home Minister P Chidambaram for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum sale case. The CBI in its argument said that it is an independent body and is not required to give any undertaking. Significantly, former Telecom Minister A Raja’s counsel Sushil Kumar pleaded before the apex court that Chidambaram should not be investigated in the case. It may be recalled that till Monday Raja’s lawyer was in favour of Chidambaram’s presence in the court as a witness. The former minister told a Delhi court on Monday that the Home Minister should be summoned as a witness to prove the minutes of a Cabinet meeting that cleared the off-loading of shares by Swan Telecom and Unitech to two foreign firms.[caption id=“attachment_93763” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Home Minister P Chidambaram. Image courtesy PIB”]  [/caption] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram were present in the meeting apart from Raja. Kumar was, however, critical of the investigating agency. “We submitted around 135,000 pages but the CBI used around 80,000 pages which are favourable to the accused,” Kumar said. “The agency did not place a file of a meeting, for example, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, (former Finance Minister) P Chidambaram and A Raja was present,” he said. “This would have made things much clearer. Till then, A Raja is prejudiced as his bail application is not entertained,” Kumar said. The hearing also witnessed a rift between the Centre and CBI’s counsels as the former supported controlled monitoring of the 2G spectrum case investigation while the CBI opposed any type of monitoring. Today’s hearing assumed significance as it was the first hearing after that controversial communique from the Finance Ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office put Home Minister P Chidambaram in a dock spiralling a political controversy. The note read: “It may be mentioned that while the UAS licenses were signed between February 27 and March 7, 2008, spectrum allocations were done starting only in April, 2008, almost four months after the LoIs were issued. However, these were not charged (beyond the normal spectrum usage charges) since there was consensus, at the levels of the Ministers concerned, that spectrum beyond the “start up” levels only should be charged.” The note is accompanied by this information: “A copy of basic facts prepared on allocation and pricing of 2G spectrum is enclosed. This has been seen by the finance minister (Pranab Mukherjee).” The note came into the public domain under the Right to Information (RTI) Act petition filed by Vivek Garg, a prominent activist. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy had filed a petition demanding robe of Chidambaram’s role in the scam. The apex court would continue to hear the case on Wednesday after a two-hour hearing today.