2012 yearender: SC blow to govt in high-profile cases, death to Ajmal Kasab
the 2G verdict that all natural resources have to be allotted through the route of “auction”.
There was some solace for the government when on September 29, a five-judge Constitution Bench came out with the opinion that auction is not the only method for allocating natural resources to private companies and made it clear that its 2G verdict was confined to spectrum and not to other resources.
The 2G spectrum case also gave some anxious moments to Union Minister P Chidambaram after Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy dragged him for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore rupee scam. Chidambaram finally got a clean chit from the apex court which also rejected the review petition against its verdict.
The scam in the coal block allocation and government's decision allowing FDI in retail were also dragged to the apex court which, though refused to interfere with the policy matter, put some searching questions to government on FDI and asked it to take corrective steps to remove legal hassles.
However, the petitions alleging large scale irregularities in coal block allocation are pending in the apex court.
Amid these developments, the UPA-II government survived a scare when the Supreme Court by a majority verdict of 3 to 2 dismissed the petition filed by former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma challenging the election of senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee as the President.
However, there was another reason for the Rashtrapati Bhavan to worry as President's Secretary Omita Paul, who was advisor to Mukherjee when he was the Finance Minister, was
Be the first to comment.
