4 February 2012
The desire to insulate the Prime Minister and single out Mr Chidambaram was motivated. The time has come for the extreme step of prosecuting the PM and his senior colleagues for abetting corruption, writes rajinder puri
The special court has rejected the petition of Mr Subramanian Swamy seeking to make home minister Mr P Chidambaram a co-accused along with former telecom minister Mr A Raja in the 2G spectrum scam. The petition was tactically flawed. The desire to insulate the Prime Minister and single out Mr Chidambaram was motivated. To accuse Mr Chidambaram of being actually involved in corruption was arguably hasty. Ironically, much stronger evidence exists of not actual corruption but of abetting corruption, which is also a cognisable offence. However, that evidence involves not only Mr Chidambaram but also the PM and his senior colleagues. Did that fact inhibit the petitioners? I have repeatedly drawn attention to the constructive responsibility of individual ministers and to the collective responsibility of the Cabinet to point out that the entire government deserve to face the consequences of this mega scam.
Thus far, the attempt has been limited to making home minister Mr P Chidambaram a co-accused along with former telecom minister Mr A Raja. But whether or not Mr Chidambaram was a beneficiary of the corrupt deal, the PM and his senior colleagues cannot escape the charge of abetting corruption, which is a punishable offence. It is perhaps the soft corner for the PM that dissuaded the petitioners in this case from focusing on the open and shut case proving the Cabinet’s abetment of Mr. Raja’s alleged corruption.
To put it briefly, in a letter to the PM, finance minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee drew attention to a note dated 25 March 2011 which was prepared with inputs from several ministries including law, finance and telecom, as well as from the Cabinet secretariat and the PMO. That note was circulated by the Cabinet secretariat. The note made it clear that after initially opposing Mr Raja, then finance minister Mr Chidambaram did not prevent him from going ahead with his policy of issuing the 2G licenses. In other words, on 25 March 2011, if not earlier, the PM and his senior Cabinet colleagues were aware of what Mr Raja was doing. They took no action against him. On 2 April, 2011 Mr Raja was chargesheeted by the Supreme Court when no action had been taken against him by the government. According to Section 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, this would amount to a clear case of abetting corruption.
Section 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act reads: “Whoever, being a public servant, in respect of whom either of the offences defined in Section 8 or Section 9 (defrauding the state) is committed, abets the offence, whether or not that offence is committed in consequence of that abetment, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall be not less than six months but which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine.” Mr Mukherjee’s note makes it clear from the sequence of events revealed that the PM and his senior colleagues, despite knowledge of Mr Raja’s actions, had done nothing to rein him in.
If the government persists in clinging to office, it makes mockery of basic democratic norms. Has not the time come for the extreme step of prosecuting the PM and his senior colleagues for abetting corruption? That would assume, of course, that the Opposition’s fight is against corruption and not against only Mr Chidambaram.

The writer is a veteran journalist and cartoonist
http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=399087&catid=39