The article below puts forward all the important points which you’ll have to know for your CLAT regarding the 2G Scam. It has been written by Shailesh Singh, a student of IInd Semester of NALSAR. Do thank him for all the efforts he has made to collect and combine the relevant facts. Also, if you have any doubts or queries regarding the 2G Scam, go ahead and post your question as a comment below. Shailesh will surely answer the queries to your satisfaction.
After the Commonwealth Scam and The Adarsh Society controversy, another fraudulent act of the government came into light, The 2G Spectrum Scam. It is the biggest scam in modern India involving the colossal amount of Rs. 1.76 Lakh Cr.
Following are the relevant facts pertaining to the scam :
1. The scam dates back to 2008, when the 2G spectrum licenses were sold for 122 circles to some private companies for Rs. 1,658 Cr.
2. The Swan telecom, Unitech (that became “Uninor”after selling its stakes to Telenor), Idea Cellular, Spice, Datacom(later became Videocon Mobile), Tata Tele & Loop telecom were some of the companies who bought these licenses.
3. The issues with this distribution :
a. It was distributed on the arbitrary basis of “first come , first served”.
b. Insufficient time was given for applying. (Violation of TRAI Norms)
c. The distribution was highly underpriced. (That led to a loss of 1.76 Lakh Cr. To the government.)
4. After getting the license the companies sold their stakes to various MNCs and their company valuation increased drastically. For example: Unitech bought the spectrum for 1651 Cr. And sold 60% of its shares to Telenor (Norway) for Rs. 6120 Cr. Now the company value was 10, 731 Cr. Without even a single subscriber there was such monstrous profit. (this example is meant for your understanding and the stats may not be correct)
5. This scam was discovered after the sale of 3G Spectrum. Further, it because obvious when CAG submitted his report. ( CAG- Vinod Rai ) (Central Vigilance Commissioner- P J Thomas )
6. The Telecom Minister A. Raja came under suspicion. He had to resign from his post on Nov. 14.
a. He is an M.P. from Nilgiris constituency in the state of Tamil Nadu.
b. He was a Cabinet Minister in the Minstry of Communication and Information technology.
c. He is a member of DMK (Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam), a party in the United Progressive Alliance.
7. Even the Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh is facing the problem since he defenced Mr. Raja by saying that all the procedures regarding distribution were executed after his consent.
8. The judicial proceedings in the matter :
a. A case has been filed by Mr. Subramanian Swamy , the President of Janta Party, to look into the 2G scam.
b. The case is before the bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly.
c. Moreover, A petition has been filed by advocate Prashant Bhushan to examine the CAG report on spectrum allocation.
d. Initially Solicitor General Mr. Gopal Subramaniam was representing the government but now the Attorney General Mr. G.E. Vahanvati will present the government’s case before the bench. He has filed the affidavit on behalf of the P.M.
okay i was meaning to ask this fr quite some time……..what’s the difference between the solicitor general and attorney general of india?
also does becoming the solicitor general imply the ull MOST PROBABLY bec ome attorney general? the wiki stuff on this is very convoluted.
glad i found this site!
Attorney General is the chief Law officer of the government. Usually, the AG doesn’t represent the government in the courts. He provides adivce on legal issues, sits on useless committees, etc
However Goolam Vahanvati has been actively taking part in representing the government in courts. Bascially, he is THE lawyer for the government.
SG is the Vice-AG, in a way. He provides advice, sits on committees, coordinates the ASGs and usually does most of the Central government’s work in the SC.
Being SG doesn’t mean you’ll end up as an AG. Unless you’ve done well and the same government that had appointed you as the SG comes to power again.
thank you for the article 🙂
Central Vigilance commissioner…PJ Thomas ..isn’t he the new commisioner.
😛
First of all thanks a lot Shailesh.
I have a couple of doubts…..
1.Is Pratyush Sinha the New CVC?? replacing P.J Thomas coz in Wiki its given as PJ thomas???
2.Subramanium Swamy had said earlier A raja could not be prosecuted because he had the minister…so does that mean that a minister is safe from criminal proceedings against him as long as he is in the office??
Thanks Sailesh. 😀
Point 4 was insightful.
People like A. Raja should be assassinated. These conniving and venal ppl have been robbing the nation. Seriously, country’s political class is in shambles.
@Rishabh-Tone it down dude. 🙂
@Vikram-P.J Thomas replaced Pratyush Sinha if im not wrong…..so he’s the current CVC….his appointment also came under quite a bit scrutiny.
and a ministers office is well WITHIN the jurisdiction of the Courts. it’s only the PMO and The President, who cannot be brought under the courts jurisdiction,that’s a constitutional provision.in Rajas case there was no Formal complaint as such.it’s only after a considerable period of time that the concerened authorities woke up.
@aymen-thanks man 🙂
Bah, I was supposed to be on leave from CG for the next two weeks. Plan isn’t working out.
Stop looking at Wikipedia articles as your source. For all government posts, visit their respective websites, the names are always there.
Thomas is the present CVC, and I remember mentioning this in one of the Compendiums. What a shame. So, so pointless, compiling compendiums and all.
Rishabh – What else do you advocate? Theocracy? Where accusation is equivalent to guilt? This is the RDB/Chetan Bhagat generation – simplify all issues, give a cause-effect relationship to everything and offer simple solutions. We should start with slaughtering the people who elected them. Oh, wait, that might be us.
Vikram – A minister can be prosecuted. But there can be no CBI inquiry against one unless the government gives the go-ahead.
@Aymen- ive asked a couple of questions in the ‘ask us’ as well 😛
@Rishabh – Don’t ask Raja. Ask the dude in black specs
To this argument I would like to add the ‘Kazhakam’ look. The DMK has been holding the Ministry of Telecom since the UPA’s inception, whenever the Grand Old Party has been in power. Dayanidhi Maran was the earlier Minister, and he has also not been free of scandal. Maran has been accused of demanding the Tatas 33.33% shares from the Tata-Rupert Murdoch DTH project (Tata Sky) for the Sun Network. In reply, he has asked the news papers which have published the report to apologize and threatened to go to court seeking compensation of Rs. 1 crore for personality damage from Indian Express, Thina Mani and Jaya TV. In May 2007 the Tamil daily newspaper, Dinakaran, owned by his brother Kalanithi Maran, published a survey whose results declared that 70% of the people of Tamil Nadu favoured Karunanidhi’s younger son M.K. Stalin as his likely successor as against 2% for Stalin’s elder brother M.K. Azhagiri. This resulted in M.K.Azhagiri’s supporters burning down the office of Dinakaran in the city of Madurai that resulted in the death of 3 employees and injuries to several others. These series of events resulted in Karunanidhi removing Maran from his position as Union Minister. The Prime Minister refused to dismiss him, and the situation was not resolved till Maran himself resigned on 13 May 2007.
its all about family politics and keeping your kin close ! And it was both ways ! Murosoli was a safe bet for the patriarch of DMK and after his death their sons are, n will always be ! Kalanadi is a media giant in TN , not only Dinakaran but SUN TV Network , Suryan FM and kumkumam magzine too ! So in order to carry forward a mass appeal , K will always need the marans ! And about the blip in their relations , well after that incident 3 years back , marans took deliberate steps to get back to the the patriarch , we should have seen the visuals on K’s Birthday that year !
Oh! The way the DMK propogates itself using the media is something a non-Tamilian would expect only the Communists and the Nazis etc. to do. The only non-family channel in TN is Jaya TV (no prizes for guessing who runs it). Even other forms of media, are pro-family, as my dear Iyer pointed out. And there is an awards show for Tamil movies organized every year, over which the ‘Dude in black specs’ presides. You can hear Rajini, Kamal Hassan etc. (lots of Tamil stars) sing his praises.
Someone please give me the name of that show, I forgot.
thankyou so much. very useful article
its a really really a very good effort by our senior’s thanks a lot sir ……its really helping us as a mentor
which will be showing its true colour’s in results…..
But subramanium swamy who filed the petition said that he couldnt try Raja himself bcoz he was a cabinet minister…..????
Please give me the link to the report. Also, how can Swamy “try” someone?
hey nice article ….
Ignoring the chaos, I’d just like to say, thank you.
While a student has taken pains to garner information and present it without any personal reactions, the bloggers expose themselves by displaying their predilections!
It is said that on the day USA became a free nation, church bells were rung to celebrate ! One person walking on the road , jumped in joy and started walking briskly, swinging his hands to their full stretch! .At one point, a person walking behind him, caught hi hand>H stopped , turned round and looked at him and said :Look Mister, I am a free man in a free country!’The other replied: ‘:I never denied it.. But wanted to tell you that your “freedom” stops where my nose begins!”So in a “democratic set-up”, each one has to realize that his freedom is circumscribed by the circle of freedom of the other!Consequently, no one has any right to accuse another unless he is in a posession of solid and unbreakable proof ofto prove what he says!
Thanks tothe Cultur of accusations popularised bycertain fascist forces, if this trend continues, ere long one could collect large amount filing defamation case against the accuser!
First know, understand it , and then open the mouth or put your finger on the keyboard.
@ Netrikkannyayman… What exactly are you trying to say? … The above article mentions the facts and only facts. It has no opinion of the writer, whatsoever. We are, in no way, willing to argue over anything. If you find any mistakes in the above facts, please mail us at : clatgyan@gmail.com
Listen Mr. Netrikkannyayman.
Firstly, YOU have exposed yourself. I’m sure you’re chums with the Kalaignar. What Shailesh has written are cold, provable facts. If you want references, we’ll give them.
I am not anti-DMK, nor do I have personal enmity against Thiru Raja. There are good things him, and Thiru Maran before him, have done for the state of telecom in India. But, whatever has happened is clearly in the wrong (why, your coalition leader, Kapil Sibal, explicitly said so),
And 1.56 lakh crore rupees is NOT a small amount.
We are only a site which gives help and guidance to CLAT aspirants. NOT a front for the Amma and her activities.
I think he was talking about the people who have commented after Shailesh, as he says “While a student has taken pains to garner information and present it without any personal reactions,”, I can only guess.
why unitech sells 2g to teleno (Norway) nd how it became a profit of 10 731 crore?
HII I M A STUDENT OF 3RD YEAR BCOM. I M DOING A WRITE UP ON 2G SCAM.SO I REQUIRED OVERALL DETAILS ON 2G SCAM.I HAVE MY OWN PAPER CUTTING BUT IT IS NO SUFFICIENT TO WRITE 80 PAGES. SO IF U HAVE DETAILS ON 2G CAN U FORWARD ME THE DETAILS .ACTUALLY I BADLY NEED.
THANKS.GD DAY
thank u:)