SC rejects review petitions

The review petitions had been filed by Rajiv Agarwal, Vinod Goenka, Essar Teleholdings, Shahid and Asif Balwa, in a variety of cases. The accused are now left with the only legal remedy of filing a curative petition against the dismissal of their review plea.

The order under challenge was passed by a Bench of Justices G S Singhvi, since retired, and Radhakrishnan. By their judgment in September last, the court had held that the 2G accused and other parties could not be given a liberty to move a high court since the “larger public interest” will have precedence over their demands.

The court had refused to modify its orders of 2011 and 2012, saying “the purpose and object of passing those orders was for a larger public interest and for speedy trial, that too on day-to-day basis”. It had said the parties could not be permitted to go to a HC when the investigation was being monitored by the SC. “When larger public interest is involved, it is the responsibility of the constitutional court to assure judicial legitimacy and accountability. Public interest demands timely resolution of cases relating to 2G scam. Prolonged litigation undermines the public confidence and weakens the democracy and rule of law,” it underlined.
The SC had shot down contentions over the court monitoring the investigation even after the chargesheet in the case had been filed. It asserted that the chargesheet had been filed only in one among various 2G related cases and the investigation into other cases was still on.