By IANS,
New Delhi : The sanctity of the “Lakshman Rekha” became the focal point of an animated discussion on the 2G scam in the apex court Thursday. While the government pointed out that there was a “Lakshman Rekha” for the apex court’s monitoring of the CBI probe into the 2G scam, the Supreme Court retorted that such a demarcation was “not sacrosanct”.
Senior counsel P.P.Rao, appearing for the central government, told the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly that the “Lakshman Rekha”, signalling an end of the monitoring of the investigation by the court, begins with the trial court taking cognizance of the probe.
As Rao sought to remind the court of the “Lakshman Rekha”, Justice Ganguly observed that “Lakshman Rekha was not sacrosanct”.
“We understand Lakshman Rekha in a limited sense. Lakshman Rekha is not all that sacrosanct. Had Lakshman Rekha not been crossed, Ravana would not have been killed,” Justice Ganguly remarked.
Justice Ganguly’s reference was to the Lakshman Rekha in the epic Ramayana, which Sita crossed, enabling demon king Ravana to kidnap her. That eventually led Lord Ram to wage a war against Ravana and kill kill.
The discussion took place in the course of the hearing of Dr. Subramanian Swamy’s application for a CBI probe into the role of Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum pricing as the then finance minister.
Senior counsel Rao referred to several judgments of the apex court driving home the point that after the trial court had taken cognizance of the investigation report, the monitoring by the higher court too comes to an end.
The court asked Rao to read its Dec 16, 2010, order wherein it had recorded that the centre had itself offered for court monitoring the CBI investigations. Rao said that offer was clothed in law and could not be read beyond it.
As the senior counsel called for a halt to the apex court monitoring, Justice Singhvi asked him to trace why the concept of monitoring, which was unknown to Indian courts, came about. Justice Singhvi also pointed out that there was no concept of PIL before 1982.
While saying that the law was an ever evolving process, Rao mentioned the N.N.Vohra Committee report which had pointed to the nexus between the politicians, police, bureaucrats and criminals.
As the court appreciated Rao for telling that law evolved according to the situation, the senior counsel said that “Law must move forward. The way it moves forward, it must be subject to the discipline set up by the apex court itself.”
As Rao contended that the monitoring of the 2G investigation by the court had come to an end with the filing of the charge sheet in the main case, Justice Singhvi said, “There is a direct nexus between what is being investigated abroad with the issuance of Letter of Intent. So we can’t say that investigation has come to an end.”
Justice Singhvi said that there are two FIRs, in one investigation is complete in part and the charge sheet has been filed. In the other, investigation was going on and the charge sheet has not been filed. Thereby, he indicated that curtains have yet to come over its monitoring of the investigation.
Seeking rejection of the plea for a probe against Chidambaram, Rao said that Swamy had already moved the trial court of Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini hearing the 2G case for initiation of proceedings against the minister.