The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected government's contention questioning its decision in the 2G spectrum case upholding the right to get sanction for prosecution of public servants even before filing of complaints saying that under the garb of review petition it was seeking "re-hearing" of the matter.
"We have carefully perused the averments contained in the review petition and the grounds on which the petitioner (Centre) has sought a review of the judgement and are convinced that the judgement, of which review has been sought, does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its re-consideration.
"In the garb of review, the petitioner cannot seek re-hearing of the matter and re-consideration of the issues decided by the court. The review petition is accordingly dismissed," a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan said.
The apex court had in its January 31 judgement indicted the PMO but let off the Prime Minister lightly for failure to decide on prosecuting the then Telecom Minister A Raja in the 2G case.
It had also set a limit of four months for deciding the issue of sanction for prosecution of corrupt public servants.
In the review petition on sanction of prosecution of public servants, the government had contended "the question of sanction gets attracted only at the stage of cognisance after filing of complaint".
It had sought a review of the verdict which blamed the PMO for sitting on the plea to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking sanction to prosecute former Telecom Minister A Raja.
The Centre had said it was seeking a review for the "limited extent of correcting certain errors apparent in the judgement" as the remarks were also made against the officers of PMO who were not party to the litigation.
This included "the observations made by this court regarding certain unnamed officers of the PMO without their being parties to the list," the review petition had said.
Government had also contended there was an error in the judgement passed by a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly (since retired) relating to the "scope of scrutiny by the competent authority of the request for sanction for prosecution."
Further, the Centre had questioned the observations made by Justice Ganguly who wrote a separate but concurring judgement, saying it comes in the way of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution and is "legally untenable".
