Daijiworld Media Network

New Delhi, Oct 14: The Supreme Court slammed the Government on Thursday October 13 saying that the 2G spectrum scandal could have been avoided if timely action was taken following the November 2, 2007 letter by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

The bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi and Justice H L Duttu said that if the government had acted on the letter, the scam could have been avoided, adding that November 2, 2007 was a crucial date relating to the case.

The bench told solicitor general Haren P Raval while he was opposing bail pleas by two corporate honchos charge-sheeted in the case that the entire exercise could have been avoided in and out of court.

The bench added that a decision could have been taken even after the then telecom minister A Raja had issued the Letters of Intent (LoI), referring to the controversial March 25 office memorandum sent to the PM by the then finance ministry headed by Pranab Mukherjee.

While the telecom commission meeting had been postponed from January 9 to January 15, 2008, the telecom ministry under Raja issued LoIs on January 10.

The memorandum issued, stressed that the finance ministry under P Chidambaram was not probably wrong in not interfering only because LoIs were issued.

To this, Raval replied saying that even though an intervention would have  prevented any further execution, the charges against the accused would have been the same.

Raval was opposing the bail pleas by Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra and Swan Telecom's director Vinod Goenka.