Chidambaram and Swamy - Case against PC dismissed by CBI Court - PC Gets Clean Chit.

A plea to make home minister P Chidambaram a co-accused in the 2G scam case was dismissed after half a day of frenzied action outside the Patiala House courts in Delhi and weeks of anticipation in political circles.
“I do not find sufficient ground for proceeding against Chidambaram. The plea is without any merit and is dismissed”, special CBI judge OP Saini said in the courtroom, in the presence of Subramanian Swamy, his wife and his lawyers.

The media, which had been crowding the court premises since morning, was made to stay outside, to maintain order, till the judge pronounced his verdict at 1.10pm – deferred twice, once from 10am and then from 12.15pm.

The order comes after successive setbacks for the government as the Supreme Court rapped it for inordinate delay in grant of sanction to prosecute Raja, cancelled 122 2G licences and slammed the process followed to fix the army chief’s age.

Swamy said that he’d take his challenge to Supreme Court.

Chidamabaram was finance minister when jailed former telecom minister A Raja gave away telecom licences illegally. Swamy had alleged that Chidambaram was equally culpable and had conspired to make money out of the deal.

The court noted that there was no evidence that Chidambaram had colluded with Raja “to subvert telecom policy and obtain pecuniary advantage for himself”.

It said that “anybody and everybody associated with a decision in any degree cannot be roped in as an accused”.

In his 64-page judgment, Saini said, “Chidambaram was party to only two decisions, that is, keeping the spectrum prices at 2001 level and dilution of equity by the two companies. These two acts are not per se criminal. In the absence of any other incriminating act on his part, it cannot be said that he was prima facie party to the criminal conspiracy.”

It said, “There is no material in record to suggest that Chidambaram was acting with corrupt or illegal motives and was in abuse of his official position while consenting to the two decisions taken with Raja… one may be acting innocently and other may be actuated by criminal intention. Innocuous, inadvertent or innocent acts do not make one party to the conspiracy.”

Congress in back lash mood blaming the opposition BJP for targeting Chidambaram and the Govt. for political gains Govt and Leaders of ruling alliance have stood behind Chidambaram defending him and claiming it was the policy of NDA govt for  first come first served which is main culprit and Raja has to be blamed fully 2G fiasco.

Where does all this take the BJP and the opposition, and Subramaniyam Swamy who happens to be also from Tamil Naidu so are Raja and Chidambaram.

One has to understand and find what made Subramaniam Swamy so averse to PC, that even after the Saini Judgement clearly giving PC clean chit Subramaniyam openly refuses to respect the judgement as it should be instead it says the Judges interpretation and the judgement is wrong,  and he has just lost a battle in 2G against PC but not the war.

Subramaniyam has three months to file appeal in High Court, he is going to fight the battle to demand making Chidambaram co accused in 2g with Raja, and prove in court of law that their is a criminal intent and collusion between Raja and PC.  ”have shown that the two of them got together, prima facie that suggests that the two of them conspired because they dealt together in four meetings” Subramaniyam said.

But the court finds no evidence or material in the material Subramaniyam filed as even enough to send a summon to PC, in such a case the battle that is lost in CBI by Swamy will have a very tall challenge to disprove the CBI Court in HC, and take it to SC.  Subramaniyam who has taken the cause of bringing about the scam in 2g, has gained lot of successs with Raja in jail with many others, out of them,  most are out.

Subramaniyam shows his adamant attitude by not respecting with dignity and honor the CBI courts judgement, his openly pointing figure that Judge Saini may be wrong, or his judgement is wrong amounts to putting judiciary under scanner, when he has the legal option to knock the higher courts. This is how courts and legal system functions and battles are fought on merits not on perceptions.

BJP lost a carrot, Congress got one, Subramaniyam has tons of preparation to work on before to file an appeal, it is Chidambaram and the team of Congress top leaders like Pranab, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singvi and with the top leader ship of congress to rejoice on a moral victory and a slap on BJP  and its campaign to corner PC ends in anticlimax a least for a long time it is loss of pressure point for BJP.

Will this episode be good for our system which is struggling to find level ground to fight corruption in high places or will this be seen as victory of judiciary and upholding of our legal system that has  wisdom and power to judge on merits and not take decision on sentiments and media frinze and influencing campaigns by political parties.  Common man will he get confused or will he take it on its merits like the judge did, hope it will.