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Journalism of Courage
Drawing strength from legal opinions given by Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium,then adviser to Union Law Minister T K Vishwanathan and Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran,the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) today annulled the controversial S-band spectrum deal between Antrix,the commercial arm of the Indian space agency ISRO,and Bangalore-based private company Devas.
The government also decided to constitute a committee headed by Planning Commission Member B K Chaturvedi to go into various aspects of the controversial deal,including how it happened and who were responsible for pushing it.
The decision was taken after it came to light that the agreement,which was inked in 2005,was loaded in favour of Devas,to which a number of former ISRO officials were closely connected.
In a hurriedly called press conference,Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said: There has been an increased demand in the allocation of spectrum for national needs,including the needs for paramilitary forces,railways and other public utility services as well as for societal needs.
And having the requirements,the government cannot afford to hand over this kind of a S-band even to Antrix for commercial activities. Therefore,the deal between Antrix Corp-Devas Pvt Ltd as on Feb 28,2005 shall be annulled.
It was,however,not clear why Moily,who is not part of the CCS,was fielded for the brief press meet on the contentious matter.
Asked if the government was aware of the legal ramifications of todays decision Devas has already threatened legal action if the contract is annulled Moily said: The legal impact was also discussed in the CCS and it will move to the court since the deal is annulled.
He added: The government has taken all possible litigation under consideration before taking the decision. We are very confident that this is the matter which,even if they go to the court,they will not succeed and we will be in a position to face any legal challenges.
However,Moilys assertions notwithstanding,sources in the Union Law Ministry acknowledged that if Devas decides to take the arbitration route as per the terms of the agreement in case of any breach of contract,either party can approach the International Court of Arbitration,Paris for arbitration, the Government would have a hard task defending todays decision.
For some reason,when the agreement was being finalised,the Law Ministry was not asked to vet it. It is strongly loaded in favour of Devas. It will be difficult to defend the CC decision in any international forum, said a functionary of the Law Ministry.
Defence Minister A K Antony later told reporters that the controversial spectrum deal was a mistake. He said:
They have done some mistake…we (the Defence Ministry) were not consulted. The S-band is mainly for strategic forces in which our army,navy and the air force have a major stake because it is a precious asset for us, he said,adding that in the future the first priority for S band allocation would be strategic forces and strategic organizations.
Yesterday,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh listed the reasons why,despite a legal opinion of November last year,the Centre had still not decided to annul the contract. I would like to mention that although the Space Commission took a decision to annul the contract in July 2010,the actual Cabinet note was received from the DoS in the PMO only in November 2010. And even then there was a number of consultation to polish it up. At the most,you can say that between November and now the Prime Ministers Office has got this note ready for the Cabinet. Decision has been taken now but it requires consultations. After the receipt of the note for the Cabinet from the DoS for preparation of the Cabinet note a number of ministries were consulted and the DoS itself took six revisions of the note before finally submitting it for approval, he said.
