Judges

2G scam continues to haunt the Government – SC asks why PM did not follow through

The 2G scam continues to haunt the Congress party. For quite some time, the Congress evaded that there was any issue with the 2G scam issue, claimed that this was a policy decision (with the honorable purpose of reducing the telecom rates), that the CAG was off its rocker, that the Supreme Court had no locus standi. Next, the Congress tried to separate itself from the scope of the scam by claiming that all this was the work of a rogue minister, A Raja; the PM was helpless since he had to depend on the minister, was bound by the challenges of coalitions politics, and besides the poor PM was a single man, how could he monitor everything that was happening (thankfully, the PM did not repeat this particular line, else the charge of being a useless and non-caring PM would have stuck to his plate).
For quite some time, the Congress believed that this will work, that eventually the case will lost its media attention, and the CBI will be persuaded to back off or make the case much weaker (which is what the CBI is already being accused of). However, when other people smell blood, then it is difficult to stop them. So, the media is forever on the case, and Subramaniam Swamy is dedicated to targeting some of the senior members of the Congress in the 2G scam rather than be satisfied with the scalp of A Raja.
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Congress speaks out against corruption – what about the strictures against Vilasrao Deshmukh ?

The Congress is suffering a lot recently due to the recent series of controversies that have impacted the party – the primary scams that are in the public memory include the Common Wealth Games scam related to Suresh Kalmadi (as well as the other huge public spending that is supposed to have resulted in huge amounts of money getting diverted), the 2G Scam (where the former telecom minister Raja diverted huge sums of money by following practices that were not fair and which resulted in undue favors to a number of people), and the Adarsh Housing Committee which claimed a Chief Minister. In all these cases, the public is pretty sure that various members of the Government are responsible, and that the Congress party members have their hands in many of these scams. This has caused so much concern to the Congress, that it is visible on the backfoot, and is taking a number of steps to try and clear its name, not through letting loose investigators to find and prosecute all possible cases of corruption even if they involve party members, but through accusing other parties of similar activities and claiming again that the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh is personally very clean and nobody should doubt him.
However, it seems that all these steps of the party will not so easily clean the stain that has soiled the feel good factor that the 2009 election win caused. For example, the personally clean Prime Minister has had a huge stain on his character, since all these controversies happened when he was the Prime Minister; he could have stopped Raja anytime, he could have taken a number of steps to stop the loot that happened under the guise of the preparation for the Commonwealth Games. Now the only defense he can take is to claim that he would be able to appear before the PAC of Parliament, but a JPC is still a no-no.
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The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket) loses in court against 2 IPL teams

The BCCI (the cricket board of India) considers itself all powerful, and with its commercial success and huge monetary balances, it also has a lot of powerful political patronage (after all, the all powerful Union Minister Sharad Pawar is in charge of the cricket body). And, goaded by competition from Subash Chandra’s ICL, the BCCI set up its own version of the T20 championship, the IPL. The IPL was stewarded by Lalit Modi, and he set it up as an incredible money making machine, earning huge money for the BCCI. Of course, when somebody makes such a successful machine, they also tend to get corrupted themselves, and so Lalit Modi allegedly has his own stake in the various transactions done as part of the BCCI (such as the various companies used for advertising and media deals), and also in multiple teams that take part in the IPL.
When finally things came to a head, in the debate over setting up a new IPL team, there was a conflict in interest between Shashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi, and an open confrontation between them took the scalp of Shashi Tharoor; and when a minister goes, there are consequences; one of the most important consequences was that it was also time for Lalit Modi to go. And so, many of his offences were detailed out, and he was railroaded out (even though the Board was equally culpable for the various acts and omissions). As a part of investigations, the Board also wanted to go against teams where Lalit Modi was involved in some ways (lot of speculation that Lalit Modi had interests in the Rajasthan and Chandigarh teams !), and so, it was speculated that the board would take some action against these teams.
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