The Supreme Court has announced that it will supervise the investigations into the spectrum allocation scandal that has polarised our politics and frozen Parliament. The court's decision to monitor the CBI investigation is, therefore, a highly reassuring one, and will impose a certain order and credibility to what appeared to be scattershot proceedings in a politically vitiated climate. It will begin to cleanse the murk of suspicion and paranoia about vested interests that has dogged the spectrum allocation scandal for so long.The Supreme Court is the one arena where the telecom scandal has been openly and comprehensively addressed. The court has pulled up the CBI for dragging its feet over A. Raja's interrogation, despite the damning CAG report — and it asked the government how it expected P.J. Thomas, a former telecom secretary and current CVC, to impartially address the investigation, even as it gave him a chance to present his own case. Given how compromised our investigative and enforcement agencies appear — the CBI with its long record of rubbery pliability before power, and the CVC which appears even more hollow than usual with its current incumbent — the court's oversight will help restore legitimacy. Also, in order to allay suspicions about spectrum allocation in the past, the court has decided that it would examine policy from 2001 onwards and study the back-story of this licensing scandal, and precedents set during the NDA regime. Widening the timeline under investigation is a good move in so far as it clears the air and puts an end to this political point-scoring of "our telecom policy versus yours", and assigns responsibility in the correct ratio, but it must not delay the immediate task at hand: investigating the subversion of telecom policy under A. Raja. 2001 and after might be instructive in terms of overall accountability, and exploring the excuse that the Raja scandal is a natural consequence of past policy. But the fact is that there is enough indication of deliberate distortion in the 2G spectrum allocation, and it must be dealt with as urgently and thoroughly as possible. Care should therefore be taken to ensure that the exhaustive terms of this probe do not impede its immediate purpose of nailing the 2G guilty. Both government and opposition have welcomed the court's oversight. They should use this moment to raise the level of political debate.
