Are they really corrupt? Yes, I am asking the government? What is stopping the Modi government from fast-tracking investigation and punishing them if they are guilty? Why do the charges and all kinds of media stories come up only before the election? And why does everything settle down once the election is over? Why did the number of IT/CBI/ED raids go up substantially before the election? Why the Modi government and the agencies under its control have not been able to prove any of the major corruption allegations against Congress and secure conviction? And what is surprising is that the IAS officer who detected the alleged land deal of Vadra continues to be transferred frequently under the NDA government.
Do you know this gentleman? He is Vinod Rai who has been extensively rewarded by the Modi government. He was made the chairman of the Banking Board of India by the Modi government in 2017. He is currently chairman of the UN Panel of External Auditors and Honorary Advisor to the Railways and a member of the Railway Kaya Kalp Council. No surprise Railways is going for privatization. Modi government also awarded him with Padma Bhushan. He is a former CAG. It was Vinod Rai whose report stated that the 2G spectrum allocation by the government had caused a loss of over 1.75 lakh crores to the government. He also reported a loss of an estimated 1.8 lakh crores in the alleged Coalgate scam.
But the irony is that both these cases could not be proved in court and all the Congress leaders were acquitted
In his 1,552-page order on the 2G Spectrum case, special judge O P Saini held that there was no criminality or conspiracy in spectrum allotment and said some people created a "scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things beyond recognition to astronomical levels"
Holding that the 2G spectrum scam of 2008 was "conjectured" by some people, a CBI court acquitted former telecom minister A Raja, DMK chief K Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, well-known businessmen, bureaucrats, and all other accused
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the two matters had put the loss to the exchequer at Rs 1.75 lakh crore and Rs 1.8 lakh crore respectively with the latter being called “the mother of all scams”. Both cases were filed on the premises of the CAG report. But CBI miserably failed the prove the charges as well also failed to prove the loss to the exchequer.
Look at the language of the court’s verdict. If such be the case CAG Vinod Rai should have been held responsible for misleading the nation and ideally his Padma award should have been stripped off. But he kept on getting rewarded by the Modi government possibly for helping BJP to throw the UPA government out of power. Otherwise, there is no explanation for why he has been so much rewarded even after his retirement? What is the reason for so much special love of the Modi government for him?
A few of my friends have asked if there were no scams why the spectrum allotment was canceled and fresh allotments were done? A very valid question and doubt are natural. Here people need to understand the legal procedure. The moment the spectrum allotment was challenged, the first reaction of the judiciary would be to put the usage of the spectrum on hold or maintain the status quo as before the allotment till such time a verdict comes. This is to prevent further losses to the government if any as alleged in the CAG report as well as to do scrutiny whether there was any process violation for spectrum allotment. Under normal circumstances, this is the process. However, holding off spectrum usage for so long would be catastrophic as the entire mobile communication system would collapse. So in the best interest of the nation, the spectrum allotment was canceled and a fresh allotment made was under observation of the judiciary so that there is no controversy.
Now the case was resting on two pillars - First, whether there was any process violation & if there was any intentional detour from the prescribed process or somebody was influenced to take such detour. And secondly, if there was any revenue loss to the government as alleged in the CAG report. The revenue loss part couldn’t be proved as the fresh allotment process didn’t generate any spectacular revenue growth. Even the auction of the 3G spectrum generated much lower revenue than the amount of loss alleged in the CAG report. Whereas when 3G came there was a multifold increase in mobile users. As well as with the advent of the smartphone device there was a genuine scope for revenue growth. But even then 3G auction revenue came nowhere near the amount of loss mentioned in the CAG report. During the 2G period, all the mobiles were feature phones with the facility of only voice calls and SMS. There was absolutely no scope for the kind of revenue loss to the government as indicated by the CAG. CAG miserably lost its credibility for raising such baseless reports. The word of the verdict says everything.
My second submission is on the alleged CoalGate scam. Here in difference to the 2G scam, the coal block allotments were not canceled immediately. Those were put on hold on the premises that the matter could wait till the verdict came and secondly, the bidders argued that they had already made huge investments to develop the blocks. But due to the non-operation of these blocks, the nation started facing a severe shortage of coal. Since there were allegations against the allotment procedure, so cancellation & fresh allotment was the only option left looking into the scarcity condition.
And the court must have been fully satisfied before making comments that there was no scam. Otherwise, it would have only released the accused for want of sufficient evidence against them. The court can always ask for fresh spectrum allocation canceling earlier allocation, there need not be any scam. A great number of major tenders are retendered, sometimes multiple times for multiple reasons. At times tenders are canceled even after placement of order. Multiple government project works get stalled because of court cases for the slightest procedural/technical issues. Many times the loser party put up a case just to delay the work. And by the time the judgment comes, it is no longer commercially viable for the winning party to take up the project at the quoted price/terms and fresh tender has to be issued.
Hope this helps to resolve the query.
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