On 21st Dec 2017, the special judge pronounced the judgment in the 2G case. It was a shocker to the public as all the accused were vindicated of all charges. More so when the scam was overhyped due to the perceived enormous loss (Rs 1.76 Lakh Cr) that it incurred to the exchequer. Everyone seems to be wondering that with this magnitude of a loss why no one is at fault? Strange isn’t it? In order to investigate the reason, I went through the judgment. The judgment discusses at length all the allegations put forward by the prosecutor. It took me a while to read through it, as it is quite elaborate and voluminous judgment with a total of 1552 pages. Through this note, I do not intend to investigate the merit of the judgment but analyze the robustness of the FCFS policy followed by DoT at that time while distributing licenses and spectrum, and whether this policy provided room for easy manipulation, thereby laying the foundation of this scam/confusion.
The Genesis
The First Come First Serve (FCFS) policy was first laid by the guidelines of Unified Access Services License, which was issued on 14th Dec 2005. The para 11 of this guideline is reproduced under.
