‘A feature of their govts’: Sitharaman jabs Congress after SC ruling on Devas

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the Supreme Court order upholding liquidation of the Devas Multimedia is a comprehensive one, while accusing the previous Congress-led UPA government of entering into a “fraud” and “scandalous” deal with the company by allocating S-band spectrum used by the defence for “pittance”.

The deal was terminated amid allegations of corruption by the Manmohan Singh government in 2011.

Addressing a press conference, Sitharaman said, “Antrix appeared in agreement with Devas in 2005 during the UPA government. It was a fraud deal. Fraud on people of India. Fraud against the country.”

Sitharaman said this kind of selling of primary endowments like wavelengths, satellites or spectrum band, giving it away to private parties and making money from private parties and making a deal out if it marks the feature of the Congress governments.

“In 2011, when the whole thing was cancelled, Devas went to international arbitration. The government of India never appointed an arbitrator, was reminded to appoint arbitrator within 21 days, but the government did not appoint,” she added.

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The FM said Supreme Court order shows how the UPA government indulged in wrong practices. “The Antrix-Devas deal was against national security. It should be the Congress party’s turn to tell how this kind of fraud was perpetrated on people of India,” she added.

The apex court on Monday said the Devas Multimedia “is a case of fraud of a huge magnitude which cannot be brushed under the carpet, as a private lis”.

The judgment is the latest chapter in a controversial deal during the previous UPA regime, when, in 2005, Devas entered into an agreement with Antrix, the private sector arm of ISRO to provide high-speed data services using S-band satellite spectrum from Antrix.

This resulted in commercial arbitration before an ICC Tribunal in the Netherlands and investment arbitration under the India-Mauritius and India-Germany bilateral investment treaty. Each of these proceedings have led to adverse awards against the Union of India.