The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre on framing guidelines for grant of security clearance to companies participating in public auction of country's natural resources.
The court decided this after a petition filed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy pointed out divergent orders passed by three High Courts in the country on allowing companies linked to the Sun Group to participate in the e-auction of airwaves for operating private FM radio channels. Swamy submitted to the Court that Sun TV and its bosses - Kalanidhi Maran and former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran could not participate in the e-auction as they were chargesheeted in the Aircel-Maxis case and are currently facing trial.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had denied security clearance to Sun TV on July 15, 2015 but subsequently on April 28, 2016 it took a different view of the matter by permitting clearance to one among the companies linked to Sun Group. According to Swamy, this dichotomy resulted due to lack of established criteria to judge the national security angle based on which clearance should be granted or denied to the company participating in auction.
The bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice DY Chandrachud said, “If we extent this logic further, what you are asking us to determine is that if any company is facing investigation in a serious charge, it cannot participate in any public auction. This in effect is blacklisting of a company.”
Swamy told the Court that the matter has serious security repercussions as the country's natural wealth such as airwaves is being given to a company which is charge sheeted in an economic offence. He said that Sun TV was wrongly allowed to participate in the e-auction by Madras High Court on June 14, 2016 as the company is an accused in the Aircel-Maxis case. Moreover, the Enforcement Directorate had chargesheeted both Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran of money laundering an amount of `5.5 billion in the Aircel-Maxis case. Besides, Kalanidhi Maran has been accused of running 300 illegal telephone lines at his Chennai residence to facilitate Sun TV services at a time when Dayanidhi Maran was the Telecom Minister.
Swamy pointed out an opinion given by Attorney General suggesting that a pending economic offence should not be considered as “threatening of national security”, in turn preventing the company from participating in an auction. The bench saw the A-G's opinion given in July 2015 and said, “Security clearance is a misnomer in the country. The real issue is whether you are ethically clear of all malpractices such as money laundering, etc that makes you eligible to be handed over airwaves or such natural wealth.”