All accused acquitted in 2G case: Key highlights

A Special CBI court on Thursday acquitted all accused in the 2G scam case.

Pic courtesy: (A Raja's supporters celebrate his acquittal by a special court in the 2G scam case)

New Delhi: A Special CBI court on Thursday acquitted former telecom minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and all other accused in the 2G scam case that had rocked the Manmohan Singh-led UPA-II government.

Following are some of the key highlights of the verdict:

- Dealing a body blow to the CAG's and CBI's estimation of huge loss in grant of 2G licences, Special CBI Judge OP Saini in his 1,552- page verdict in the main CBI case held that some people "artfully" arranged few selected facts and created a scam "when there was none".

- "I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that prosecution has miserably failed to prove any of the charges against any of the accused," Saini said in his verdicts in three separate cases related to the 2G scam in a packed courtroom at the Patiala House premises.

- In all, there were 17 accused, including Raja and Kanimozhi.

- The three judgements, which together ran into 2,183 pages, included the one that stemmed out of the Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s money laundering case.

- The ED and the CBI said they will challenge before the Delhi High Court the verdicts.

- Buoyed by the verdicts, the Congress and the DMK said "truth" has finally prevailed and that justice has been delivered while the ruling party asked the Congress not to treat them as a "badge of honour".

- The Congress demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and other BJP leaders apologise to the nation for their alleged "propaganda and lies" on the issue.

- Manmohan Singh said the court judgement needs to be respected as it has "pronounced that the massive propaganda" unleashed against his government was without any foundation.

- "Will all those people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley and other BJP leaders, who for years made false propaganda and lies their stepping stone to come to power, apologise to the country?" asked Congress communications incharge Randeep Surjewala.

- In a counterattack, Jaitley said the Congress should not treat the 2G verdict as a "badge of honour." The party's "zero loss theory" was proved wrong when the apex court squashed spectrum allocation in 2012, he added.

- A number of supporters of DMK leaders Raja and Kanimozhi, who were anxiously waiting outside the jam-packed courtroom, broke into loud cheers as soon as the verdict was pronounced.

- "There is no evidence against me and justice has been delivered," Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, told reporters.

- A beaming Raja said, "You see everybody is happy."

- In a statement, Raja said the court acquittal showed that the presumptive loss in allocation of 2G spectrum was "cooked-up". He also debunked the presumptive loss theories in the allocation.

- Raja remained in jail for over 15 months while Kanimozhi was in prison for six months before they were granted bail. Other accused persons were also in jail for varying terms.

- The trial in the three cases relating to the 2G scam began after the then comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai in his report alleged 122 2G licences were given to telecom operators at throwaway prices when the UPA was in power and pegged at Rs 1.76 lakh crore the loss to the national exchequer.

- The CBI had alleged that there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of licences for the 2G spectrum which were scrapped by the Supreme Court court on February 2, 2012.

(With PTI inputs)