SC to hear Swamy petition against Chidu in 2G scam

The Supreme Court will hear a plea by Subramanian Swamy, challenging a trial court order that dismissed his allegations against Home Minister P Chidambaram alleging his involvement in the 2G spectrum scam. The case will be heard by a Supreme Court bench on 11, 12 and 13 April. Swamy has argued that Chidambaram should be made a co-accused in the case along with former telecom minister A Raja because he also had a role in deciding the spectrum pricing and allowing telecom companies to off-load shares to foreign firms.  He had said that the evidence brought before the trial court was sufficient to show that Chidambaram, as the then Finance Minister, had prima facie committed offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act and other criminal laws. Swamy’s plea was, however, rejected on 4 February, by the Special CBI Court, trying the 2G case, which had said Chidambaram did not indulge in any criminal conspiracy or derive any pecuniary advantage in the decisions taken with Raja. The trial court had said that Chidambaram, the Finance Minister at the time of controversial allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008, was only party to two decisions — keeping spectrum prices at 2001 level and dilution of equity by two companies — which was “not per se criminal”. The Supreme Court had on 2 February left the special court to decide on Swamy’s plea to try Chidambaram in the case. The trial court then rejected the private criminal complaint filed by Swamy, saying it was without merits. It said Swamy could not bring evidence on record to show that Chidambaram was acting with “corrupt” and “illegal” motives and the case against him was distinguishable from other accused who are facing trial in the 2G case. With inputs from PTI