The Delhi court on Thursday morning acquitted all the 17 accused in the 2G spectrum case, including former telecom minister A Raja and DMK leader M Kanimozhi. Judge OP Saini, hearing the case in Delhi today said that the CBI had failed to provide adequate evidence against the accused and hence they are acquitted by the court.
He said that “I have no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove the charges and all the accused are acquitted of the charges.” While the Congress is celebrating the verdict of the court, BJP is underling that back in 2012 the Supreme Court held that the 2G policy of the Congress-led government was “corrupt and dishonest” and canceled all 122 licenses handed by former telecom minister, Raja.
The Supreme court in 2012 had canceled 122 licenses for mobile phone networks allocated by former telecom minister A Raja, stating that the airways were wrongly given to companies without a transparent bidding process.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who’s UPA government was charged with allegations of corruption after the verdict said that “The judgement speaks for itself…I am glad the court has pronounced unambiguously that all this massive propaganda that was being done against the UPA was without any foundation.” The UPA government after two consecutive terms was defeated in 2014, and one possible reason listed was one of India’s biggest telecom scandal, the “2G scam”, for which the 17 leaders were charged with allegations of corruption.
The Congress members including Manmohan Singh are of the view that “to companies without a transparent bidding process.”
Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley mocked that the Congress was taking today’s verdict as a badge of honour and considering that the 2G policy of the UPA government was honest policy. “This was a corrupt, dishonest policy was upheld by the Supreme Court in February 2012. Each and every case of spectrum allocation was quashed by the Supreme Court as unfair and arbitrary,” he said.
He alleged that the Congress had changed the first come first serve policy to first pay first served policy, of which the chosen few took the advantage. “Huge amount of arbitrariness was followed by the UPA. The first come first served policy was converted to the first pay first served policy and a chosen few were informed about the change of policy…the favourites had their bank drafts prepared,” he said. Further giving information on the decision of the Supreme Court back in 2012, the Finance Minister said that the first pay first served policy of the UPA government was taken up as a challenge and was cancelled by the Supreme court. He further added that the court also ordered to have a fresh policy through auction.