The 2G judgement dtd. 21.12.2017

It was the fag end of the UPA - 2 regime. Manmohan Singh was under fire for being lame duck, incompetent to control the corrupt in his own council of ministers. L. K. Advani called him the week Prime Minister. His cabinet was already tagged with indecisiveness, non performing and corrupt. UPA - 2 was painted with brush called corruption. The hype, the melodrama and the buzz created around corruption and indecisiveness had already caught the imagination of the Nation. BJP aided by its Man friday in the office of CAG, and the media, leveraged the situation to its maximum advantage. It rode to the power partly because of this portrayal of UPA as scam ridden, corrupt, incompetent and Modi promised the moon to the the electorate if voted to power viz., eradication of corruption, bringing back thousands of crores of black money supposedly stacked in tax heaven and Swiss Bank abroad and also promised to the unemployed youth of creating lakhs of jobs etc., and the result was they believed and voted him to power with absolute majority, didn't keep him under the coalition mercy unlike Manmohan Singh. Manmohan Singh to a great extent was the victim of this coalition pulls and pressure because he was not a hard-boiled politician but an intellectual of high integrity.

I would now like to recall the words of Manmohan Singh uttered during relinquishing the office after the defeat -

1. Quote : ‘I am confident that someday history will judge me kindly’.

Unquote : These words sound rather apologetic but in reality, not and nobody took this seriously. But I now realise that Manmohan Singh has uttered these words not like a politician but he meant what he spoke.

Now let us peep into this 2G judgement. Before doing this, we have to be aware of the fact that Justice O. P. Saini, who pronounced the judgement was the most respected judge in Judiciary and he has handled many cases which were refused by other judges and hence it is said, he was the obvious choice for this case. He also, has the distinction of hearing the other high profile cases related to the Commonwealth Games.

2. Quote : Justice O. P. Saini while pronouncing the judgement Says - ‘ For the last about SEVEN years, on all working days, summer vacation included, I religiously sat in the open courtroom from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm, awaiting for someone with some legally admissible evidence in his possession, but all in vain. Not a single soul turned up. This indicates that everybody was going by public perception, created by rumor, gossip and speculation. I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any charge against any of the accused made in its well choreographed charge sheet. There is no evidence on the record produced before the court indicating any criminality’.

Unquote : It was as if the judgement, while acquitting all the accused was in fact indicting the prosecution of failure to produce the evidence in support of the charges. Now let us juxtapose item 1 & 2. It perfectly reflects the apologetic (though they are not) words of Manmohan Singh - that history will one day judge me kindly.

There is a BJP government at the helm controlling the ‘caged parrot’ and ‘His Master's Voice’ as once told in exasperation by SC to CBI. The prosecution was by the agency which is under the direct control of Modi. Under these circumstances, the kind of judgement that has come out is back breaking to BJP. More than the judgement, the language used by one of the respected judges is more humiliating than the judgement itself. It is a severe loss of face to BJP. But BJP perhaps not so much ruffled by this judgment because their job is done. They achieved what they wanted by brandishing this corruption plank in 2014 election.

Rahul Gandhi was boasting in the aftermath of Gujarat election that Modi’s credibility has taken a hit. But that is inappropriate. But it is here that Modi’s credibility has suffered and he has lost the most potent weapon he has used against opposition - the plank of corruption. He can no more use it because he has overdone it and also abused it . Now BJP and Modi have to invent a new issue. Congress it appears has got a huge reprieve from this judgement. But it has still a long way to go and it is a long haul.

This judgement has the potential to herald a new permutations and combinations in the political spectrum at national level with Parliament election in 2019 looming large.

K.N.Krishnan.