As Congress hails the acquittal of all accused by the CBI in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, that had cost it the 2014 elections, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the party is treating the judgement as a 'badge of honour' but its zero loss theory was proven wrong when SC (in 2012) quashed spectrum allocation.
"Congress leaders are treating this judgement as some kind of a badge of honor & a certification that it was an honest policy," Jaitley said.
"Each & every case of spectrum allocation was quashed by SC (in 2012) as arbitrary & unfair, the policy was quashed as unfair & intended to cause loss to Government of India & the govt was directed to have a fresh policy by which an auction would take place. The fact that the policy caused loss is clear form the fact that the subsequent auctions got a much higher price," he added.
The scam relates to the granting of 2G spectrum licence allocations in 2007-08 which caused, according to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer, turned out to be a moral boosting victory for the Congress and the UPA as all the 17 accused including former telecommunications minister A Raja and DMK’s MP Kanimozhi were acquitted today by the special CBI court on the grounds that record was not sufficient and the prosecution has failed to prove the guilt.
Acquitting all the 17 accused in the scam, the CBI court in a 2000 page judgment delivered by Judge O. P. Saini ruled that there was no criminality involved in the entire episode. The court has found nothing wrong in the allocation of the licenses and has found no evidence of the alleged kickbacks in the process.
The telecom scam was at the centre stage of the Congress-led UPA government’s second term and had earned it a bad name which cost them the 2014 general elections. The entire UPA government had been accused of large-scale corruption right under the watch of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who led the coalition government.
(Inputs from agencies)
