Justice AK Ganguly, who along with Justice GS Singhvi has been behind several headline-making judgments in recent times, is set to retire on Thursday. Going by a tradition, he is expected to deliver a verdict that may force home minister P Chidambaram to quit.

On October 10 last year, a bench of justices Singhvi and Ganguly reserved its verdict on the plea for a probe into the role of Chidambaram, who was then finance minister, in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

A backgrounder:

Petitioners, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy and an NGO called the Centre for Public Interest Litigation have sought a probe into Chidambaram's role in the spectrum pricing.
Swamy has argued that Chidambaram knew what the then former telecom minister, A Raja, was doing even before the licences were allotted. Chidambaram, as finance minister, overruled those finance ministry officials who had favoured auction of the spectrum.

Prashant Bhushan, appearing for CPIL, has also sought setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to monitor the CBI's probe in the scam, which he said was not fair.

CBI, represented by senior counsel KK Venugopal, and the government, represented by senior counsel PP Rao maintain that Chidambaram did not have any direct communication with Raja in this matter.

"The records show that there was no meeting between Raja and Chidambaram throughout this period and before January 10, 2008 [when the DoT headed by Raja issued 122 Letters of Intent to telecom firms flouting the auction policy] and that all the discussion papers were seen and routed through the finance secretary to the finance minister and all the correspondence was seen and routed through the finance secretary," the government has argued.

However, petitioners have refuted the claim on the basis of an 11-page note, written by the finance ministry to the prime minster's office, which came to light thanks to an RTI activist. [While it was made public in reply to an RTI query, it was seen as yet another indicator of a cold war between Chidambaram and his successor in the ministry, Pranab Mukherjee.]

Bhushan has argued before the court that "This note clearly states that finance ministry officials repeatedly pointed out that spectrum allocation could not be determined by the entry fee of 2001, that it should be allocated through a market discovered price. Since in our system the finance ministry cannot be overruled by a line ministry, it was impossible for Raja to move ahead without the concurrence of the then finance minister."

Venugopal, on the other hand, has argued against a CBI probe. “No case is made out to issue any direction to the CBI for a probe against Chidambaram, as all the documents had already been examined and chargesheet had already been filed (in the special court).” He has also opposed the demand for an SIT to oversee the CBI probe.