Exclusive | SC’s Scrutiny Kept 2G Scam Probe Fair: Ex-CBI Director

In an exclusive interview to The Quint, former CBI Director, Amar Pratap Singh recollected the challenges and pressures he faced in probing one of India’s biggest scams – the 2G spectrum allocation to private companies. He said the Supreme Court’s monitoring the 2G scam probe put pressure on the CBI to expedite the investigation, which had been lying untouched by India’s premier investigating agency for one year. But as the Special CBI court in Delhi pronounced its verdict on 21 December, after a six-year trial, that all parties had been acquitted of wrongdoing, Singh said he was “surprised and disappointed”.

On 21 October 2009, the agency had filed an FIR against ‘unknown officials’ for non-transparent allocation of spectrum. A year later, based on a petition filed by Subramanian Swamy, the SC pulled up the CBI for its tardy investigation.

SC gave us the deadline, there was demand for an oversight committee over the CBI and that the CBI should report to this committee. We had to convince the court that we will do a fair and impartial investigation and there is no need for oversight. The SC agreed and said, ‘You send your status report to CVC, there will be no oversight committee, and CVC with its comment will forward it to the SC.’ That was a very big pressure on us. 

AP Singh, Former Director, CBI

Singh added that he didn’t want an oversight committee to be instituted because this could’ve stripped the agency of its authority.

You are no longer the decision-making authority, and then the organisation is simply reporting to the oversight committee. This would have set a precedent for future investigations into other cases. And the powers of the CBI Director get greatly diminished. 

AP Singh, Former Director, CBI

Ruling Government Did Not Interfere

The 2G scam was said to be India’s biggest. The case burst into the limelight during the UPA II government when, in November 2010, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report claimed that the allocation of 2G spectrum caused losses of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the public exchequer.

A Raja, a DMK leader, was the then-telecom minister during the UPA 1 government when 122 spectrum licences were wrongly granted to private companies. The CAG claimed in its report – and so did the CBI – that favours were passed to private companies by Raja by allocating licenses at a throwaway prices and adopting a non-transparent process of allocating the sale of the 2G spectrum.

Another DMK leader, MP Kanimozhi, was charged by the CBI for her role in receiving kickbacks from private companies who were favoured in the 2G case.

According to Singh, despite of the involvement of a leader of the DMK, the political party in alliance with the ruling party, Congress, the government didn’t impede the investigation.

Was there any interference by the government then?

I don’t think so, because the government was also aware of what was happening in the SC. So I don’t think they were really interfering in our investigation.

‘We Had Enough Evidence Against Raja’

The CBI filed a chargesheet of 80,000 pages against A Raja, Kanimozhi and around 15 other bureaucrats and corporates. In the chargesheet, the CBI claimed that Raja changed the rules and eligibility criteria to benefit private players. The agency also produced evidence before the court to prove the extent to which both DMK leaders received kickbacks from the telecom companies.

As far as our chargesheet is concerned, I feel we did have enough evidence (against A Raja) to show that there were certain irregularities in the allocation of the licence. The main effort of the then Minister was to give away the licence to Unitech and Swan Telecom. At that time, Swan was with Shahid Balwa, who were both realty developers and came into the telecom business because the minister was previously in Environment Ministry and he was in touch with them, so the entire effort was to benefit these two companies.  

AP Singh, Former Director CBI

The Enforcement Directorate filed a separate chargesheet under money-laundering charges proving the money-trail of kickbacks.

2G Probe Was the Priority: Singh

For almost six months, the CBI prioritised the 2G scam probe because of pressure from the SC, and as a result, the probes into other sensitive and important cases were disrupted.

Did it affect investigation of other crucial cases?

Definitely it did, because all our concentration was on the investigation of this case.

What were the other important cases?

The CWG scam was there at that time, and we had to take a final decision on the Aarushi case.

Though the CBI succeeded in carrying out a fair and impartial probe into 2G because of the SC’s monitoring, he hinted that officers in other sensitive cases do face political pressure.

Do you feel officers are often targeted when they deal with such sensitive cases?

I don’t think there was any kind of political retribution as far as 2G is concerned. Otherwise, yes, it is possible that that happens. Some people may be annoyed with you because of some decisions you have taken, that’s quite possible.