The smile says it all. Is’nt it? Around the world only in India we can proudly say that ‘There can be smoke without fire’. We never doubt the credibility of our courts. But the way cases are fought for years and witness & evidence collected painstakingly are presented in the fashion which eventually leads to ‘lucky’ escape of near guilty, is worrying. Fodder scam, disproportionate assets cases, Common wealth games scam and the list is endless. Replace this scenario with an ordinary man picking up a road side accident victim and taking him to the hospital. If the victim by mistake points fingers at him as the reason for the accident… God bless the poor soul. That’s the story of our Democracy.
The story so far
In 2008, 122 new second-generation 2G Unified Access Service (UAS) licenses were granted to telecom companies on a first-come, first-served basis at the 2001 price. According to the CBI charge sheet, several laws were violated and bribes were paid to favour certain firms in granting 2G spectrum licenses. According to a CAG audit, licenses were granted to ineligible corporations, those with no experience in the telecom sector (such as Unitech and Swan Telecom) and those who had concealed relevant information leading to a loss of revenue of ₹1.76 trillion (US$27 billion), based on 2010 3G . On 2 February 2012, the Supreme Court of India ruled the allotment of spectrum “unconstitutional and arbitrary”, cancelling the 122 licenses issued in 2008. According to the Apex court, important national assets were gifted away to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer.
Benefit of doubt
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on 21st December, 2017 declared no evidence to prosecute the accused and acquitted all accused personnels. The court further termed the witnesses as “evasive”, “mischievous” and “irresponsible”. It blamed the entire chaos on officials of Department of Telecommunication. (DoT)
Future action
The matter will be appealed in higher courts. As per Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the special public prosecutor to the case, money trail to the accused was never touched upon in the hearing even though CBI has presented the facts. The money trail is depicted as under
NPowersU Expert Opinion
Let’s end this blog thinking about Amitabh Bachchan asking a final question of Rupees Ten Crores (including Income-tax!) to a common man to win the game ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’.
Question – The debacle in the special court relating to the 2G spectrum case can be attributed to:
- Indian investigating agencies (CBI, ED and CAG) are ill equipped and raw. They want to punish the high profile individuals just to show them who is more powerful.
- Evidence placed before the court were faulty, evasive, mischievous and irresponsible.
- Accused were unaware and acted in good faith. Fault lies with the officials of DoT. The money trail is a mere coincidence of duly contracted arm’s length business transactions.
- Accused are more powerful than law. Everything in India can be ‘managed’.
The common man knows the answer but he is afraid of the repercussions. The common man then selects last lifer which is ‘Phone a friend’. And to everyone’s amazement the friend is none other than the accused!
In an article appearing in leading Mumbai daily on 26th December, 2017 which talks about an incident wherein political heavyweight of Mumbai, travelled to a hills-station for some family time, was disturbed by loud music in a nearby resort making him complain against the resort. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) sealed the resort within a month’s time over lack of proper sanitation and water management in the hotel! That’s very quick. The common man hopes that his plaints are heard and acted as fast as this case.
This is what we mean – ‘Demo-crushy at its best.’
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