Citizens' Accountability LedgerWho owned the mess? 25 years, every party, on the record

Case 08 · Public money

2G spectrum. A ₹1.76 lakh crore estimate, and not one conviction

Allocations 2008; CAG report Nov 2010

Licences cancelled. Everyone acquitted.

6,481 days since Someone did leave over this: A. Raja (Union Telecom Minister, Nov 2010).

Human cost
A finite public asset handed out at 2001 prices in 2008, on a first-come queue that moved when the queue was told to move
Financial cost Est
CAG put the presumptive loss at ₹1,76,379 crore, a figure disputed from the day it was published

What happened

In January 2008 the Department of Telecommunications issued 122 telecom licences with spectrum at 2001 prices, on a first-come-first-served basis whose cut-off was moved at short notice. The CAG report tabled in November 2010 found the Telecom Minister had overridden the advice of the Law and Finance Ministries. In February 2012 the Supreme Court cancelled all 122 licences as unconstitutional and arbitrary.

How it unfolded

  1. Jan 2008

    The Department of Telecommunications issues 122 telecom licences with spectrum at 2001 prices, first-come-first-served, with the cut-off moved at short notice.

  2. Nov 2010

    The CAG report is tabled. It finds the Telecom Minister overrode the advice of the Law and Finance ministries, and puts a presumptive loss of ₹1.76 lakh crore on the allocations.

  3. Nov 2010

    A. Raja resigns as Telecom Minister.

  4. Feb 2012

    The Supreme Court quashes all 122 licences.

  5. Dec 2017

    A special CBI court acquits all 18 accused, holding that the prosecution failed to prove anything. The ₹1.76 lakh crore figure is never tested in court and remains presumptive.

Dates are as the record states them, which is sometimes a month or a year rather than a day. Entries marked in red are the ones where nothing happened next.

Claim against record

What the government said

The minister and his party maintained the allocation followed an existing policy inherited from the previous government, that the presumptive loss figure was a notional construct, and the 2017 acquittal vindicated them.

What the record shows

Licences cancelled. Everyone acquitted.

The Supreme Court struck down the licences, but the criminal case collapsed: in December 2017 a special CBI court acquitted all 18 accused, holding the prosecution had failed to prove anything. The ₹1.76 lakh crore figure was never tested and remains a presumptive estimate. Nobody was punished, and nobody was cleared in a way that settled the matter either.

Contested / alleged

The loss figure is a CAG presumptive estimate, contested by economists and by the government of the day. All criminal charges ended in acquittal. What is not contested is that the Supreme Court found the allocation process itself unconstitutional.

What accountability should have looked like

Auctioning a scarce public asset at market value, and a prosecution capable of surviving a trial so that a cancelled-licence finding did not end in nobody being answerable.

Ministers and office-holders responsible

Naming who held the portfolio is a matter of public record. It is not by itself a finding of personal responsibility for any death or any rupee.

Sources

T1 primary record · T2 reporting · T3 partisan

Ask them officially. File an RTI Know a better source? Add one

Cite or export this case

Citizens' Accountability Ledger, "2G spectrum. A ₹1.76 lakh crore estimate, and not one conviction" (Allocations 2008; CAG report Nov 2010), case-66. https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-66/

JSON for this case The whole ledger as CSV

Quote the case id rather than the number on the card. The id never changes; the number shifts whenever an older case is added ahead of this one.