2G scam: SC dismisses Swamy's plea against Chidambaram

In a huge relief to Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the Supreme Court today dismissed a plea for making him a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case, saying there was no prima facie material against him of any criminal conspiracy or procuring of any pecuniary gain.

"No case is made out against P Chidambaram and the special leave petition filed against the judgement of the special CBI court is not liable to be entertained. Accordingly, the SLP is rejected," a Bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan said.

The petition was filed by Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy seeking a direction for a probe against Chidambaram and for making him a co-accused along with former Telecom Minister A Raja.

Dismissing his plea, the Bench said, criminal conspiracy cannot be inferred merely on the suspicion that there was a meeting for taking decision between the officials of department of telecom and two ministers--Raja and Chidambaram, who was then also Finance Minister.

The Bench said there was "no prima facie material" that Chidambaram got any pecuniary benefit nor was there any material on record to prove that he, as the then Finance Minister, abused his official position.

The judges said that the poor management in allocation of spectrum cannot be said to be a product of criminal conspiracy.

This is the second time a judicial relief has come for Chidambaram after a Delhi court on February 4 this year had dismissed a plea of a co-accused in the 2G case.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini had held that Chidambaram had not indulged in any criminal conspiracy or derived any pecuniary advantage in the decisions taken with Raja.

Giving a clean chit to the finance minister in the allocation of 2G spectrum in 2008, Saini had said Chidambaram was party to only two decisions – keeping spectrum prices at 2001 level and dilution of equity by two companies – which "are not per se criminal".

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