SC role: Government applying different yardsticks

The all-out attempts being made by the Union government and the Central Bureau of Investigation to thwart any possibility of the Supreme Court monitoring the Rs1.76 lakh crore spectrum scam in the light of home minister P Chidambaram’s name being tossed up by the key petitioner belie the government’s vowed faith in the judicial screening of matters which, of course, aren’t troublesome for the ruling party.

The very fact that the Centre’s stand in the spectrum case is altogether contrary to what it had been stressing in the Gujarat violence cases gives an impression that it doesn’t want a fair probe in the case.

It was the Gujarat government that had cried foul when the Supreme Court decided to monitor the investigation in the mass violence cases in the aftermath of the Godhra massacre some nine years ago, and the UPA government said justice has been done.

When the apex court termed the role of indifferent Gujarat government in dealing with killers as of ‘Nero’, the UPA government justified it saying since the state government and its investigating agencies were perpetuating the mayhem, the top court’s decision was in the best public interest, just and fair.

The top court must get the cases investigated by a special team and monitor its investigation too, it asserted.

However, it couldn’t swallow the recent order by the apex court that merely set up a special investigating team comprising two former judges among others to monitor the investigations being carried out by the investigating agencies in the mega billions back money scam.

It has sought review of that order saying the government is competent to investigate the scam and accordingly bring the siphoned off money back to the country.

On this count, the Centre again contested the court’s jurisdiction to set up a body that, it argued, isn’t recognised in law.

Now, the government is all making all out efforts to persuade the apex court not to intervene in the spectrum case probe because charge sheets have been filed. “Let the system function’’, CBI counsel said, while government’s lawyer Rao said the court doesn’t have the power to monitor the probe at this stage.