NEW DELHI: Reacting to the alleged 2G scam verdict, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, “I do not want to boast anything. The judgment speaks for itself and the court’s judgment has to be respected. I am glad that the court has pronounced unambiguously. All the massive propaganda which was being done against the UPA was without any foundation.”
The court also blamed senior officials of the Ministry of Telecom, then law minister H R Bhardwaj, then law secretary and the media for failing to understand technicalities and thereby creating an “unnecessary confusion”, which led to registration of the case. The officials whom the court criticised severely included Mathur and Bhardwaj and PMO officials Pulok Chaterjee and TKA Nair.
Special CBI court judge O P Saini said the CBI miserably failed to establish the case despite filing a “choreographed chargesheet” which had some shockingly “incorrect facts”. “I may add that many facts recorded in the chargesheet are factually incorrect, like Finance Secretary strongly recommending revision of entry fee, deletion of a clause of draft LoI (letter of intent) by A Raja, recommendations of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) for revision of entry fee etc,” the court said. The apex court- appointed special public prosecutor Anand Grover also came in for sharp criticism from the special court which said the quality of prosecution in 2G cases had “totally deteriorated” and by the end it became “directionless”.
The special judge also threw out the CBI’s case against the Essar and Loop groups observing that the prosecution has not been successful in proving “any of the ingredients either of the offence of conspiracy to cheat Department of Telecom (DoT) or of the substantive offence of cheating”. The Essar Group welcomed the judgment after acquittal of its promoters Ravi Ruia and Anshuman Ruia.
Besides the Ruias, the court also acquitted Vikash Saraf, one of the Essar Group directors, Loop Telecom promoters I P Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan, three companies—Loop Telecom Ltd, Loop Mobile (India) Ltd and Essar Teleholdings Ltd. The third case involving money laundering charges against the accused automatically collapsed in view of the main case being rejected by the court.