Why ‘Justice’ Arnab Goswami is wrong on the CBI special court

No, I don’t watch his news channel. In fact, I don’t watch any news channel for a long time now, prompted by my survival instinct. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain calm while ‘watching’ the news and hearing little, if anything. The questions posed by anchors often sent my blood pressure soaring; and the conclusions drawn by them sometimes threatened to give me a stroke. It was safer to keep them at arm’s length for my own health.

But Arnab Goswami being Arnab Goswami, the Pope of the idiot box, it is difficult to shut out his voice completely. There are friends and acquaintances who swear by him and there are colleagues who say they have to watch his News Hour for purely professional interest. One of them informed that Goswami had declared the 2G judgment given by the CBI Special Court acquitting all the accused partly ‘illegal’.

While Goswami is clearly not alone in believing that there is something ‘fishy’ with the judgment ( I chanced upon a tweet by the redoubtable Madhu Kishwar in which she said that her information is that Rs 500 Crore were spent to secure acquittal of the accused), Goswami’s reach and iconic status in rabid right-wing circles make him a far more dangerous mischief monger. People, I hope, still Take Madhu Kishwar’s statements with a pinch of salt. But I know many who continue to take Goswami seriously despite his terrible track record.

For those who still believe allocation of 2G was a scam, let me explain why ‘Justice’ Goswami’s instant judgment on the 2G acquittal is entirely misplaced and why the CBI Special Court deserves to be congratulated for standing up to appalling stupidity that the political class and the media in this country are clearly capable of. That is why the facts of the case were never presented clearly; the right questions were never asked and people like Kapil Sibal who tried to explain that there was actually no loss were ridiculed and made to look like idiots.

• The second generation ‘spectrum’ or radio waves, the UPA Government decided in 2007, would be given to telecom companies at fixed license fees for different circles. The rates were to be the same as in 2001, when the then NDA Government had given away spectrum.
• With the rates ‘fixed’ there were only two possible means for the Government to allot spectrum, either by drawing lots or by giving it to eligible companies on ‘first-come-first-serve’ basis, the same basis that was resorted to in 2001.
• Over 500 applications were received and 122 of them were given the license, for which the companies paid and went on to invest in necessary infrastructure and manpower.
• Those who did not get the spectrum could have gone to the court and cried foul. But they didn’t.
• It was left to the one and only Vinod Rai to come up with his by now infamous concept of ‘notional loss’ and suggest that had the spectrum been auctioned, the Government could have earned Rs 1.86 lakh Crore.
• Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who knows a little more about the law than our Justice Goswami, has rightly pointed out that whether the Telecom Minister favoured anyone or if the policy to give it on fixed rates was wrong or not could possibly be a ‘civil’ dispute—and those who were denied spectrum could have moved the court—but there could be no question of criminality.
• The Supreme Court of India made the monumental blunder of cancelling the 122 licenses given to companies. What was their fault? They had responded to the Government’s invitation for applications, had fulfilled the eligibility criteria, paid the fees and got the license. The wholly arbitrary and legally atrocious decision of cancelling the licenses shook investor confidence in both the government and the Indian judiciary. But there was no meaningful debate at the time because the infallible Justice Goswami and his fellow TV anchors had no patience to listen to contrarian voices.

That of course does not mean that nobody made money. In any business dealing involving Crores of Rupees and the Government, it would be a miracle indeed if no money changes hands and some people don’t make money.

But rather than strengthen institutions like the CBI and the courts and point out steps to plug loopholes, what Justice Goswami and TV channels have done is to weaken them immeasurably; so much so that people today do not trust any institution. Some people may still trust Justice Goswami and TV channels but their number is getting smaller and that is a pity.