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NEW DELHI: An Indian judge on Saturday threw out a petition to prosecute the country's powerful home minister over a huge telecom corruption scandal, bringing some relief to the embattled government.
The plea "to summon Chidambaram as an accused is dismissed," Special Judge O.P. Saini told the courtroom in a brief statement.
The ruling brought a rare moment of cheer to Premier Manmohan Singh's Congress government, whose standing has been battered by the cut-price mobile licence sale, alleged to have cost the treasury up to $39 billion in lost revenue.
"It is a relief," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.
The timing of the ruling was an added boon -- coming before Congress faces local elections starting Wednesday in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh whose outcome could have an influence on the 2014 general elections.
Regional opposition party leader Subramanian Swamy, who brought the case against Chidambaram, had insisted the government politician could have intervened to avert the tainted sale when he was finance minister in 2008.
Chidambaram has denied any wrongdoing in the sale of second-generation (2G) mobile licences that the Supreme Court cancelled last Thursday, stunning the flagship cellphone sector and embarrassing the government.
The ex-telecom minister in charge of the licence sale, A. Raja, is on trial accused of conspiring to grant the mobile permits in exchange for personal gain.
He denies wrongdoing in the scandal -- called one of the biggest in India's history.
Swamy, who before the ruling had vowed to prove that "Mr Chidambaram is a crook," told reporters outside the court he was "surprised" at the decision and would appeal against the ruling.
The opposition politician, whose legal actions prompted federal investigators in February 2011 to start probing the licensing scandal, called his fight to make Chidambaram a co-accused in the telecom case a "battle royal."
Swamy, 72, has enjoyed strong backing for his case against the 66-year-old Chidambaram from the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
There was no immediate comment from Chidambaram, who was named home minister after the 2008 deadly Islamist attacks on Mumbai, but Congress workers let off firecrackers in celebration in his home constituency in south India.
"We always knew that our colleague in government was not culpable of any of the things that Mr Swamy accused him," said the current telecom minister Kapil Sibal. "The court's verdict has vindicated the stand of the Congress party."
Graft has become a hot political issue in India due to the so-called "2G scam" and tainted contracts awarded for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, as well as a nationwide anti-corruption campaign by activist Anna Hazare.
-AFP/ac
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