No criminal culpability of Chidambaram in 2G case: CBI

In the midst of a raging controversy over a Finance Ministry note to the PMO, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today said it had examined the role of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in connection with the 2G scam and there was no criminal culpability on his part during his tenure as Finance Minister.

The agency distanced itself from the controversy after the "secret note" of Finance Ministry was obtained through an RTI and also submitted before the Supreme Court which stated that the Telecom ministry could have gone in for auction of 2G spectrum licences if Chidambaram had insisted on it during his tenure as Finance Minister.

Highly-placed CBI sources said that all these documents were examined and Finance Ministry had been opposing the policy of Department of Telecom of first-come-first serve.

"...In view of the financial implications, the Ministry of Finance should have been consulted in the matter before you (DoT) had finalised the decision. I request you to kindly review the matter and revert to us as early as possible with responses to the above issue. Meanwhile, all further action to implement the above licences may please be stayed," the then Finance Secretary D Subbarao had said in his letter to then Telecom Secretary DS Mathur dated November 22, 2007.

The sources said that there was no indication from the papers examined by the CBI that Chidambaram was in knowledge of the alleged criminal conspiracy being hatched by the then Telecom Minister A Raja.

They said as per records available, a Group of Ministers was to meet on January 15, 2008 but Raja, in pursuance of his alleged conspiracy, issued the Letter of Intent on January 10 itself setting in motion the issuance of 2G licences embedded with 4.4 MHz spectrum.