As his government sought to defend itself by asserting that it had no role in picking prosecutors or directing their work, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy left them red-faced.

Swamy virtually blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ignoring his warnings about law officers who were not serious about fighting corruption.

Swamy said: "This is not a setback at all. It’s an aberration as the law officers were not serious on fighting against corruption...the high court will strike down the verdict."

Led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, senior BJP leaders held that the government had little role in the choice of special public prosecutors who were appointed by the Supreme Court, which had monitored the case.

"The charge sheet was choreographed by the Congress in 2011 for hiding corruption," said HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, adding that all 2G licences still stood cancelled.

But Swamy’s take was different. He held that "there are many officers in the finance ministry who are still loyal to former FM P Chidambaram. The ministry has to be purged. So I hope the PM takes a lesson from this. We must now fight corruption on war-footing."

Swamy pointed out that Special CBI Judge O P Saini, who acquitted all the accused in the case, rued that despite having "religiously" devoted seven years to 2G scam cases, no "legally admissible evidence" was placed before him by the CBI.

Swamy also said former attorney general (AG) Mukul Rohatgi had welcomed the verdict, adding that he had written to Modi opposing his appointment.

"I had written to PM opposing his appointment as AG. Rohatgi had appeared for some of the accused companies."

Refuting the charge, Rohatgi said, "Swamy is in the habit of making wild and false allegations. I had appeared for some of these people at the time of grant of bail in the Supreme Court in 2012. After I became AG, I had nothing to do with the case."