Dr. Subramanian Swamy vs Dr. Manmohan Singh And Anr. on 31 January, 2012
Author: G S Singhvi
Bench: Aftab Alam
REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 1193 OF 2012
(Arising out of SLP(C) No. 27535 of 2010)
Dr. Subramanian Swamy ... Appellant versus
Dr. Manmohan Singh and another ... Respondents J U D G M E N T
G. S. Singhvi, J.
1. Leave granted.
2. Whether a complaint can be filed by a citizen for prosecuting a public servant for an offence under the
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for short, `the 1988 Act') and whether the authority competent to
sanction prosecution of a public servant for offences under the 1988 Act is required to take an appropriate
decision within the time specified in clause I(15) of the directions contained in paragraph 58 of the judgment
of this Court in Vineet Narain v. Union of India (1998) 1 SCC 226 and the guidelines issued by the 2
Central Government, Department of Personnel and Training and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)
are the question which require consideration in this appeal.
3. For the last more than three years, the appellant has been vigorously pursuing, in public interest, the cases
allegedly involving loss of thousands of crores of rupees to the Public Exchequer due to arbitrary and illegal
grant of licences at the behest of Mr. A. Raja (respondent No. 2) who was appointed as Minister for
Communication and Information Technology on 16.5.2007 by the President on the advice of Dr. Manmohan
Singh (respondent No. 1). After collecting information about the grant of licences, the appellant made detailed
representation dated 29.11.2008 to respondent No. 1 to accord sanction for prosecution of respondent No. 2
for offences under the 1988 Act. In his representation, the appellant pointed out that respondent No. 2 had
allotted new licences in 2G mobile services on `first come, first served' basis to novice telecom companies,
viz., Swan Telecom and Unitech, which was in clear violation of Clause 8 of the Guidelines for United Access
Services Licence issued by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology vide letter
No.10-21/2005-BS.I(Vol.II)/49 dated 14.12.2005 and, 3
thereby, caused loss of over Rs. 50,000 crores to the Government. The appellant gave details of the violation
of Clause 8 and pointed out that the two officers, viz., R.J.S. Kushwaha and D. Jha of the Department of
Telecom, who had opposed the showing of undue favour to Swan Telecom, were transferred just before the
grant of licences and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) which had never entered into a roaming
agreement with any operator, was forced to enter into such an agreement with Swan Telecom. The appellant
further pointed out that immediately after acquiring 2G spectrum licences, Swan Telecom and Unitech sold
their stakes to foreign companies, i.e., Etisalat, a telecom operator from UAE and Telenor of Norway
respectively and, thereby, made huge profits at the expense of public revenue. He claimed that by 2G
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