It was all over your newspapers this morning. It was beaming non-stop on the news channels all of yesterday. It will continue to dominate the headlines for the weeks and months to come. But with all the technical, legal & political jargon being thrown around, do you really understand exactly what happened? The best way to know for sure is if you can explain it to your school or college-going children. What does the Supreme Court verdict in the 2G Telecom Scam tell them about the India they are about to inherit?

Let me try explaining it with an example that would be easier for the exam-stressed kids of today to relate to. Imagine that the country’s most prestigious engineering college has a peculiar way of conducting its entrance exam. This examination doesn’t score you on marks since the questions are rather easy and everybody is expected to get ALL the answers. In fact even one wrong answer is enough to be disqualified. The ranking is instead on the basis of speed, so that the student who submits an all-correct answer sheet first, will get the highest rank and so on, in order of time taken to finish. An outer limit of 3 hours is set for the exam after which answer sheets will not be accepted. People have been grumbling for years that this process does not necessarily pick the best students, but the college is adamant that its policy of “Speed Based Admission” is the only way it will select students. Since this is a computer-based test conducted simultaneously in all centres, ranks are obtained immediately on clicking “submit” and students pretty much know where they stand. The college announces that advertisements with admission details will be out after a few weeks whereby students can come and chose their streams/subjects based on their examination rank after filling up a counselling form.

This time around however, the Dean of the college is keen to favour students of a certain coaching class. On a random day, a few weeks after the entrance exam, the college uploads an announcement on its website that counselling forms are now being accepted in the admissions office as of today. These counselling forms will be made available in Room 420 of the main building in just over an hour from now for a duration of one hour. Students have to collect their forms in person and they should be carrying their school-leaving certificate in original with copies in triplicate. Students who can’t collect their counselling form in this time window will have it delivered by post and they need to be returned to the admissions office within a fortnight to be considered for admission. Then, the Dean comes up with the masterstroke. He decides to twist the meaning of “Speed Based Admission” to mean ‘students who can complete and submit the counselling form the fastest’ instead of the original basis for the rankings ie. entrance examinations. No prizes for guessing which coaching class’ students happen to be outside Room 420 with all documents just minutes after the announcement went up on the website? There’s an uproar after the admissions are announced but the Dean is able to defend his actions with a straight face saying that he is only following the policy of the college.

Sounds like too ridiculous a story to pan out in real life? Well, they say anything is possible in India and this dear children, is pretty much what your Supreme Court has declared is an illegal process nearly four years after it happened. Doesn't really sound like rocket science to figure out that it was a sham, does it?

For those who don’t believe something as incredible as this could have happened, here is the evidence on the website of the Department of Telecom itself. This first Press Release which was uploaded at 1:47PM on the 10th of January 2008, to the DoT website did two things:

1. It arbitrarily advanced the original application deadline of 01 October 2007 by an entire week.

2. In the last paragraph it alluded to the "first cum (sic) first served (sic)" policy but DELETED a critical line (allegedly on the Minister A Raja's behest) according to the DoT's sworn deposition before Parliament's PAC (Public Accounts Committee). This line had been inserted by Siddhartha Behura, the then Telecom Secretary and it stated that, “However, if more than one applicant complies with LoI conditions on the same date, the inter-se seniority would be decided by the date of application.” By deleting this line it could now be automatically assumed that the chronological order of submitting the LoIs (Letters of Intent) and not the original application date was going to determine who got spectrum first.

But how would these applicants who were going to be asked to submit their LoIs know what, where & when to submit? Here comes the masterstroke in a SECOND press release that was uploaded a few minutes later. Here is the clincher:

All above are requested to assemble at 3:30 pm on 10.1.2008 at Committee Room, 2nd Floor, Sanchar Bhawan, New Delhi. The companies which fail to report before 4.30 P.M. on 10.01.2008, the responses of DOT will be dispatched by post. All eligible LOI holders for UASL may submit compliance to DOT to the terms of LOIs within the prescribed period during the office hours i.e. 9.00 A.M. to 5.30 P.M. on working days.

So basically, by some fantastic co-incidence, if you happened to be in the area and had all the extensive documentation ready at your side, you could pick up the form before 4:30 PM, fill it up and submit it before close of office hours at 5:30PM to book your early bird place in the spectrum queue. Yes Ladies & Gentleman. THIS is the procedure that has actually been defended with a straight face in the courts of our glorious nation.