Put the PMs stand on record: SC

The Supreme Court questioned the PM's inaction and silence on Swamys application for sanction.

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Unwilling to accept the verbal assurance of the Solicitor General of India in open court that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had dealt with every letter of Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy seeking sanction to prosecute former telecom minister A Raja in the 2G spectrum allocation,the Supreme Court today insisted on a written record of the assurance in the form of an affidavit,to be filed in the next two days on the Prime Ministers behalf.

The Supreme Court had,on November 16,questioned the Prime Ministers 16-month inaction and silence on Swamys application for sanction. The PM is,incidentally,arrayed as the first respondent in Swamys petition.

The hearing is in tandem with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) severely indicting the government and the minister for the manner in which licences were issued.

Today,the apex court said it would study the CAG report,adding that it still manages to be a revealing one despite being sanitised to be not as damaging as the earlier draft report. The hearing on the report is scheduled for Monday.

Swamy,the court said,had addressed his sanction request directly to the Prime Minister on November 29,2008,but got a response only on March 19,2010 from the Department of Personnel and Training. The reply merely said investigation was underway and his request was pre-mature.Terming the delay very disturbing,the Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly had asked Solicitor General (SG) Gopal Subramanium to explain why the Prime Minister took 16 months to respond against a Supreme Court ruling that a sanction application need to be decided within three months.Every letter of Dr Swamy has been dealt with in a most responsible and transparent manner, Subramanium began today.But the statement did not stop the court from seeking out what the SG meant by dealt with,and asked him to clarify whether Swamys letters had been replied to.Were all the communications sent to him (Swamy)… was he responded to? the court persisted. Not satisfied with the word play ensuing from the governments side that Swamys letters were adequately responded to and the nature of the PMs responses were friendly,the Bench settled that the government,instead of making oral submissions,should by Saturday file an affidavit for the Prime Minister through an officer concerned. The court posted the case for hearing on Tuesday.

If ultimately it is found that something has been kept back from the court,it becomes an extremely serious matter. So it has to be on record, the Bench explained even as the SG tried to maintain that the truth was so transparent and those in authority had already answered most appropriately to the letters.

At this point,Swamy interjected to emphasise that he had only received one letter from the government in March 2010 and another from Raja himself in June 2009 saying it was inappropriate to apply for sanction. He (Raja) is not the Sanctioning Authority, the court hit back. But the SG mediated to point out that this was not an adversarial litigation,and he himself had at one point wanted the investigation into the scam to proceed.

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He made it clear that the government had not wanted to be seen taking any time or adjournments in the matter.

Dismissing notions that the government was embarrassed by the courts questions on the issue,Subramanium said my confidence (in the government) is more than justified. We take your questions positively.

Our questions are only tentative, Justice Ganguly reacted. Subramanium then articulated his personal observation in open court that I have great pride to serve as Solicitor General to a Prime Minister with the highest sense of propriety. To which the court drily replied that Dr Swamy has also given such a certificate.