Fascinating sociological insights in 2G cases judgment

Chennai: A quick run-through of the December 21 monumental and historic 1,552 pages judgment by the Special Judge, Mr O.P. Saini in the '2G Spectrum Cases', while acquitting all the 17 accused including former Telecom Minister, A. Raja and MP, Ms. Kanimozhi, both from the DMK, has, besides the core ruling that there is no evidence on record to prove any wrongdoing or criminal conspiracy, delineated some very significant sociological insights.

These may seem to be on the margins of the judgment, but the sociological insights do give wings to what Hegel called the 'Owl of Minerva” taking flight. An important issue in that basket shows how the nature of a belief in the social sciences, can go miles to making of an alleged scam of such unprecedented magnitude - in this case in the allocation of '2G licences and spectrum' by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in January 2008 - and how it may come in garb of what the Sociologist Robert K Merton termed 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.

It was not just the “astronomical” figures of the notional loss spoken about in the CAG report, arising from the non-auctioning of the 2G licences. There was a set of complex, many-layered issues that went back to the first privatisation move in the 1994 Telecom Policy, the subsequent modifications to the policy, issues of pricing, the emerging technologies in mass telephony and the jargons that defined them, level playing field for private players, role of the supreme regulator the 'Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)', policy implementation by DoT and so on.

A major part of Justice Saini's judgment virtually reads like an encyclopaedia on how all these issues unfolded over successive governments at the Centre vis-à-vis the charges raised in the CBI's charge sheet. Crucially, in the operational part of his Judgment, the judge says, “non-understanding of issues in proper perspective led to a suspicion of grave wrongdoing, where there was none, at least as per the record of the Court. This factor greatly contributed to the controversy in the instant case.”

The Judge further says, “As the DoT could neither effectively communicate the issues to others, nor others could understand the same, the issue got snowballed when media reports started appearing.”  Then, referring to the “first” such media report in a leading national daily, dated November 8, 2007 the Judge points out how it had “highlighted” that the then Minister of Communications had not accepted the TRAI recommendations and DoT for auction of 2G spectrum and “thus a loss of Rs.10,000 crore would be caused to the Exchequer.”

“The News item was rightly denied by the DoT as factually incorrect. However, on account of the various actions and inactions of the officials, as noted above, nobody believed the version of DoT and a huge scam was seen by everyone where there was none. Thus some people created a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things beyond recognition to astronomical levels,” the judgment says.

This looks like a textbook case of a 'self-fulfilling prophecy', wherein sociologist Merton explained how the “false definition of an initial situation” could trigger changes in belief and action that could lead to a situation of the 'false' becoming 'true'. More than a belief or an initial situation being actually true, it is the consequences in some people mistakenly believing it to be true that could cause a turmoil in social affairs. Justice Saini's judgment draws our attention to this possibility and cautions us against it without mentioning Robert Merton's insights.

The other important non-legal aspect Justice Saini's judgment speaks of is how “policy decisions of the DoT are scattered in different files, and as such are difficult to trace and understand……Policy issues were strewn around here and there in a disorderly manner. Because of this, it becomes very difficult for outside agencies and institutions to understand issues in proper perspective, leaving scope for controversy”.

The judge also has a long take on 'opening' and 'closing' of the file system, which in this instance was in an “haphazard manner ever for a small issue, and there is no systematic way of dealing with issues in one file, in a sequential manner at one place”. So many files to search for and this make it “difficult for anyone to understand these issues”.

Thus, the way the bureaucracy works and how officials at the top at a given point of time handle the file notings - the judge even points out how notes have also been recorded on extreme margins of the note sheet, some of which have become frayed with the passage of time - is itself a telling commentary on how it adds to the semantic confusions. “Non-understanding of official notes by outside agency creates an impression of wrongdoing”, the judge has observed.

The judge also adverts to how, except for one or two high ranking officials including the former Union Finance Secretary, Subba Rao, officials during cross-examination would not even stand up to what they have noted or what was found written on the official records. 

It is in this huge backdrop, the judge says, “the charge sheet of the instant case is based mainly on misreading, selective reading, non-reading, and out-of-context reading of the official record. Further, it is based on oral statements made by the witnesses during investigation, which the witnesses have not owned up in the witness box. Lastly, if the statements were made orally by the witnesses, the same were contrary to the official record and thus not acceptable in Law. Many 'facts' recorded in the charge sheet are factually incorrect, like the (then) Finance Secretary recommending revision of entry fee, etc.”  

Adverting to the attitude of some of top officers then in the DoT, when Mr. Raja was the minister, in particular, the judgment devotes some space to the then secretary, D.S. Mathur, for the latter's “obstructive and dithering” approach, little realising that “as per the Constitutional scheme of things, an elected representative has to be at the helm of affairs of a Government department”.

The problems alluded to by Justice Saini, in the course of his painstaking judgment, are thus also unwittingly key issues that continue to engage modern sociology like the nature of bureaucracy from Max Weber's time, and issues in contemporary hermeneutics on how to read/understand an official record.