Gorakhpur - Lashing out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the 2G spectrum case, Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal has demanded an apology from the party after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the Prime Minister on the issue.
"The BJP even demanded the resignation of Manmohan Singh in this issue but the Supreme Court has given him a clean chit. Now what has the BJP got to say? They should first apologise to the Prime Minister for asking his resignation, Jaiswal told media here after the apex court quashed 122 spectrum licences granted after January 2008.
"The apex court's decision of giving a clean chit to Manmohan Singh is a slap on the face of BJP, if the BJP has any self-respect, they should remember their limitations next time," he said.
"In the same way, they should not make advance plans in the matter concerning Home Minister P. Chidambaram, they should maintain limits. When the court takes a decision it will be followed, if the order is not in his favour, that order will also be followed, but the BJP should stay in limits and not blurt out things in excitement," Jaiswal added.
Jaiswal also clarified his party's stance in the matter by ordering an investigation by the the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and welcomed the verdict stating that the orders would be followed to the letter.
"If we had thought that spectrum was correct we would have never ordered a CBI enquiry into that case, if we had thought that spectrum was correct the then telecom minister would not have been in prison. We have always maintained that there were irregularities and the Supreme Court's verdict to terminate the spectrum licenses then those orders will be followed," said Jaiswal.
The apex court on Thursday quashed 122 spectrum licences granted after January 2008, and asked a trial court to decide whether Chidambaram needs to be probed for his role in the spectrum case.
The apex court verdict was in response to Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy's petition seeking a CBI probe into Chidambaram's alleged role in the spectrum scam, and on two pleas filed by noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan seeking cancellation of 2G licences and the setting up of a SIT to probe the scam.
Swamy had on January 7 submitted documents seeking prosecution of Chidambaram in the case before a Delhi court.
The telecom scam, one of India's biggest graft cases ever, may have cost 39.57 billion dollars in expected revenue losses to the public exchequer as per the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India's report.
Today : Sunday - May 27, 2012, 09:01am (GMT+5.5)
