IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

SLP(C) NO. 27535 OF 2010

IN THE MATTER OF:

Dr. Subramanian Swamy Petitioner

Vs

Dr. Manmohan Singh and Another Respondents

AFFIDAVIT ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER,IN REGARD TO THE

AFFIDAVIT DATED 20.11.2010 OF V. VIDYAVATI, DIRECTOR PMO,

FILED IN THIS PROCEEDINGS.

I, Subramanian Swamy, son of Sitarama Subramanian aged about 71

years, resident of A- 77 Nizamuddin East, New Delhi 110013, do hereby

solemnly affirm and state as under:

1 I am the Petitioner in the instant Special Leave Petition and fully

acquainted with the matter and fully competent to swear thereto. I have

read and understood the aforesaid affidavit, and thereon have to state as

under.

2. In the first place, the above affidavit corroborates what I stated in

this Hon’ble Court, on 18.11.2010, that:

(a) Despite my first Application(to Respondent No.1, for Sanction to

prosecute Respondent No.2 under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988),

having been served on the Respondent No.1 on 29.11.2008, and my

further updated Applications thereon dated 30.5.2009, 23.10.2009,

31.10.2009, 8.3.2010 and 13.3.2010, it was only on 19.3.2010 that I

received a reply thereto for the first time from the PMO---and that too,

not from the Deciding Authority, the Prime Minister to whom I had

applied, but from the Secretary Department of Personnel, Public

Grievances and Pensions;

(b) Before that the only communications I received from the PMO, if at

all, were proforma acknowledgements of receipt of my above

Applications;

(c) I had received on or about 18.6.2009 a letter from Respondent No.2,

revealing that the Respondent No.1 had passed on to him, my Application

for sanction; and his reply thereto.

3. This Petitioner has been vindicated by the aforesaid Affidavit on three

averments made in his Petition herein.

(a)First, that till the March 19, 2010 letter from the DOPT, none of the

letters written by this Petitioner to the Designated Authority, the Prime

Minister prior to March 2010 and starting from November 29, 2008

seeking Sanction u/s 19 of the PCA 1988, were replied to. This is contrary

to the averment of the Learned Solicitor General made before this Hon’ble

Court on November 18, 2010 that every letter was replied to.

(b) Second, that the Prime Minister made independent inquiries on the

substance of my materials provided in the these letters, which is against

the judgments of this Hon’ble Court. It is regrettable that Law Officers of

the Government had failed to apprise the PM of the law of the land that
he must decide on the sanction question only on the materials provided

by me.

(c) Third, the Prime Minister had forwarded my petition to the accused

Minister Mr. A.Raja for conveying his(the latter’s) defence to me. Mr. Raja

then wrote this Petitioner a letter dated June 18, 2009 which is annexed

herein as Annexure P-11. This too is against the judgments of this

Hon’ble Court wherein it is held that in a petition for sanction there is no

lis. Hence sending my letter of November 29, 2008 to Respondent No.2

herein was patently illegal.

4. The affidavit under consideration details the sorry state of bureaucratic

affairs in the nation’s highest seat of executive power: it appears to be

geared to block any legal action against the corrupt acts of Ministers.

These officers have even flouted the Manual of Office Procedure [Volume

II on Procedure in dealing with statutory matters, letters from persons

and inter-Ministerial communications] which they are obliged to follow.

5. This Hon’ble Court may therefore lay down guidelines so that such

deliberate obfuscation by the bureaucracy in such an important matter of

prosecuting corruption, is rectified, so that in the future a citizen’s public

spirited efforts to set the law in motion (by preferring a criminal complaint

in court as permitted by a landmark judgment of a Constitutional Bench of

this Hon’ble Court twenty six years ago in Antulay Vs.Ramdas Sriniwas

Nayak (reported in 1984(2) SCR914), is not rendered wellnigh sterile.

(a) For example, it is a matter of national shame to see the current

Cabinet Minister in charge of DoT on national television betraying

ignorance of the 1984 historic judgment of this Hon’ble Court that

enabled a private complaint to be filed for cognizance in court after

obtaining sanction. It is such ignorance that has permeated the legal

advisory department of the Prime Minister, and thus is part of the cause

for the unacceptable delay in processing my Application/petition for

sanction.

6. As for the rest of the facts stated in the concerned Affidavit, it is for

this Hon’ble Court to consider whether the Affidavit is a satisfactory

response to this Hon’ble Court’s requirement that it be apprised of what

the Respondent No.1 had done to reply to my Application from its receipt

on 29.11.2008 to the date 20.10.2009, on which the CBI registered an

FIR in the matter on the direction of the CVC.

However, to assist this Hon’ble Court, and to emphasize how

disingenuous as well as lacking in frankness the PMO and other concerned

Departments of the Government have been, and continue to be, this

Petitioner has appended here as Annexure P-12, a List of Dates of the

manouevres carried out by these Departments, in dealing with the

Petitioner’s Application. The same is culled out solely from the Affidavit

under consideration.

7. It is submitted that therefrom it becomes evident that throughout it

was the apparent determination of the Government to derail all attempts

by the Petitioner to legally pursue the prosecution of this monumental and

unprecedented scam; and even now the Government is quite without any

reservation in shamelessly delineating these manouevres. It is submitted

that such manoeuvres delineated lead to the irresistible inference of

collusive complicity of all Government departments concerned, at least in

scuttling any progress in processing my Application. Except for the three

pointed queries from the Prime Minister himself, no attempt appears

to have been made to get to the meat of the Petitioner’s data; and the

entire well nigh unlimited resources of the PM’s office in regard to staff

and access to Government information and the legal knowledge of the

highest Law Officers of the land, has been used only to attempt to ensure

that that any finality on my Application can be put off indefinitely.

DEPONENT

VERIFICATION: Verified at Delhi on this 22nd day of November 2010

that the contents of paragraph 1 of the above affidavit are true to my

personal knowledge and paragraphs 2 to 7 are my deductions/opinion

which I believe to be true;, no part of this affidavit is false and nothing

material is concealed therefrom.

DEPONENT
 ANNEXURE P-12

LIST OF DATES OF EVENTS DELINEATED IN THE CONCERNED AFFIDAVIT

DATED 20.11.2020

S. Date Event

1. 29.11.2008 Respondent No.1(hereinafter for brevity referred to as

the PM) was served with the Petitioner’s Application for

Sanction to prosecute Respondent No.2 under the

Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

2. 1.12.2008 PM notes “Please examine and let me know the

facts of the case”.

3. 5.12.2008 The Director in PMO, drafts a letter to the Secretary

DoT,with a request for a factual report.

4. 11.12.2008 After consideration “at various levels”, the above letter

was sent to the Secretary DoT.

5. 13.2.2009 “ Factual reply” of DoT was received by PMO

6. 24.3.2009 Note from Director in PMO whether DoT should be

requested to “send a suitable reply to both Members of

Parliament and the President of the Janata party at the

appropriate level”.

7. 25.3.2009 Above Note was acted on, by sending a letter to DoT

 requesting” a suitable reply to the Petitioner at the

appropriate level.”

8. 30.4.2009 Director in PMO prepared a Note ,proposing that Dr.

Variath’s Application for Sanction be sent to the

Department of Legal Affairs “for action as

appropriate with a request to intimate the legal

position.”

9 PM’s Secretary cut the above rigmarole to size by

asking the exact point on which Law ministry opinion

__ was to be sought.

10 20.5.2009 Law point was defined: “whether there was any ground

for considering such a request”.

11 29.5.2009 Above query was sent to Dept of Legal Affairs

__

12 30.5.2009 Petitioner’s Second/Reminder Application was received

____________________________________________

13 1.6.2009 PM endorsed on Petitioner’s letter”Please

examine and discuss.”

____________________________________________

14 19.6.2009 Director in PMO recorded that the Respondent No.2 had

personally replied to the Petitioner

__

14 On the above Note ,the Secretary of the

A 21.7.2009 PM,demanded to know whether a similar request

is being handled in the Anti Corruption Cell______

15 Instead of doing as directed by the PM, the matter was

sent to the Political Wing, apparently on the basis of

__ some earlier case.

___________________________________________

16 Since the Department of Legal Affairs had asked for a

response from DoT, the Director in the PMO suggested

that in the meanwhile.“the issues raised by Dr. Swamy

be examined on the sectoral side.”_________________

17 23.10.2009 Petitioner sent to the PM, two further Applications for

31.10.2009 Sanction.____________________________________

18 27.10.2009 PM noted on the above letters”Please

4.11.2009 discuss.”,and “Please examine”respectively._____

19 18.112009 Both letters were discussed with the PM, who

. stated that that the Ministry of Law and Justice

should examine and advise.They were so sent on

the same day._____________________________

20 8.2.2010 Asst Legal Advisor sent his advice duly approved by the

Minister of Law and Justice ,that since Dr. Swamy was

relying on the CBIinvestigation/action, grant of

sanction would be determined only after perusal of the

evidence collected by the CBI “and other materials

 provided to the competent authority”.

21 13.2.2010 The PM approved of sending a letter to the Petitioner

stating the above.______________________________

22 4.3.2010 The Law Ministry sent a Note to the PMO, refusing to

write to the Petitioner, because it was only an advisory

body and not administratively concerned with accord of

sanction .___________

23 8.3.2010 Petitioner sent two further letters to the PM, apprising

13.3.2010 him of developments made by the CVC and CBI and

oncemoredemandingsanction._____________________

24 18.3.2010 __After ,as usual ,getting the reponses from the CBI,

the CVC ,the DoT and the Department of Personal, the

PMO directed the Department of Personal to send a

lettertothePetitioner____________________________

25 19.3.2010 _____The Petitioner was informed by the Department of

Personnel that his Application for sanction would be

considered only after the CBI enquiries were complete._