The acquittal of all accused in the 2G Spectrum Scam case on Thursday has left the then CBI director A.P. Singh 'shocked and disappointed'.
Speaking to THE WEEK, he said that the court verdict disappoints him as the agency painstakingly gathered evidence and expressed shock that all accused have been acquitted. The CBI is now planning to appeal in the High Court.
“The judgement relating to 2G Scam case today (Thursday) has been prima facie examined and it appears that the evidence adduced to substantiate the charges by the prosecution has not been appreciated in its proper perspective by the court. CBI will be taking necessary legal remedies in the matter. In due course, CBI will be filing an appeal,” said the CBI.
Reacting to the verdict, Vijay Agarwal, lawyer of Swan Telecom's promoters Shahid Usman Balwa, Vinod Goenka and others, said that it is a victory of truth and justice has been served by the court.
“The CBI case was a mountain made out of a molehill and ended up like Bofors,” he said.
The judgement by the special CBI judge O.P. Saini in the Patiala House court runs into 1,552 pages where it has come down heavily on the investigating agencies—both the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. The court has been hearing three cases—two filed by the CBI and one by the Enforcement Directorate.
In its verdict, the CBI court said that the charge-sheet filed by the agency is based on “misreading, selective reading, non-reading and out-of-context reading of the official record.”
Judge Saini said that there is “no material on record to show that the then telecom minister A. Raja was mother lode of conspiracy in the case. There is also no evidence of his no-holds-barred immersion in any wrongdoing, conspiracy or corruption.”
Coming down heavily on the CBI, the judge said that the charge-sheet of the case is “based mainly on misreading, selective reading, non-reading and out-of-context reading of the official record. Further, it is based on some oral statements made by the witnesses during investigation, which the witnesses have not owned up in the witness box. Lastly, if statements were made orally by the witnesses, the same were contrary to the official record and thus, not acceptable in law.”
It was also embarrassing for the CBI when the judge said that many facts recorded in the charge-sheet are factually incorrect, like the finance secretary strongly recommending revision of entry fee, deletion of a clause of draft by Raja, and recommendations of the TRAI for revision of entry fee.
“I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any charge against any of the accused, made in its well-choreographed charge-sheet,” Saini said in his judgement.
The court also observed that there was “unwarranted delay in the examination of important witnesses coupled with the type of hype around the case indicates that the witnesses may be under pressure or were even coerced to toe the prosecution line.”
It said that even the witnesses who were expected to be in the know of everything that had happened in this case, were recorded at a very late stage and with a rapid pace. No plausible explanation has been given for the delay except citing the high-profile nature of the case. This puts a cloud on the fairness of the investigation.
The court also criticised the probe of the ED, saying that the ED case is completely hinging on the CBI investigation. Since the CBI probe has been rejected by the court, it not only threw out the ED case but also ordered release of the attached properties.
Meanwhile, Agarwal said that the CBI in this case had filed around 4 lakh documents,“thinking that the truth will get concealed in between so many documents. But the judge has very beautifully observed in the order that the charge-sheet in the instant case is based mainly on misreading, selective reading and non-reading and out-of-context reading of official record.”
“The judge has also said that for about the last seven years, he sat on all working days, summer vacations included, from 10 in the morning to 5 in the evening, waiting for some legally admissible evidence to come up but not even a single soul turned up,” Agarwal said. “This indicates that everybody was going by public perception created by rumours, gossip and speculations,” he added.
Case background
The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate worked in tandem to investigate what the BJP, then in opposition, called the biggest scam during the UPA's tenure.
The who’s who of the country were called for interrogation. Finally, Raja was arrested on February 2 2011. It has been almost 7 years since the 2G scam hit the then-ruling UPA government.
The case acted as a catalyst for the BJP, which challenged every action of the ruling Congress by linking corruption to every decision taken by the government and forcing adjournments of the Parliament.
The first charge-sheet was filed on 02.04.2011 by the CBI against A. Raja, Sidharath Behura, R. K. Chandolia, Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Sanjay Chandra, Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara, Hari Nair, M/s Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. (now M/s Etisalat DB Pvt. Ltd.) among others; and thereafter, a supplementary charge-sheet was filed on 25.04.2011, arraigning in additional Accused Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, Asif Balwa, Rajiv Agarwal, Karim Morani and Sharad Kumar.
“The volume of the documents ran into few hundred thousand pages, which took an entire room to store,” said an official.
Allegations levelled
(a) A. Raja, along with Sidharath Behura and R. K. Chandolia, conspired to give benefits to private accused persons, that is, M/s Swan Telecom (P) Limited (company of Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka) and to Sanjay Chandra’s companies, in the issuance of LOIs, UAS licences and spectrum by DoT.
(b) The charge-sheet alleged that A. Raja ensured that there be a cut-off date on the receipt and processing of the UASL applications, so that the system can be manipulated to benefit its favoured few.
(c) It was further alleged that the first come, first serve policy was changed to first compliance, first serve, which was not disclosed to the public but was informed only to favoured few, who had kept everything ready, and, thus, were in a position to take advantage of the manipulation, thereby getting LOIs, UASL and spectrum, though they were not eligible for the same.
(d) It was also alleged that M/s Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. was the front company of M/s Reliance Communications Limited, which already had UASL, but to manipulate things and to conceal the violation of clause 8 of the UASL Guidelines, a mechanism was devised, thereby concealing the true ownership of the former company.
(e) It was further alleged that the Dual Technology Policy was also manipulated, thereby defeating the right of M/s TTSL / M/s TTML.
(f) It was further alleged that the Government of India was cheated by non-revision of entry fee.
(g) Lastly, it was alleged that in furtherance of the said conspiracy, M/s Dynamix Realty, a partnership firm of M/s DB Realty Ltd. and other DB Group companies, paid Rs 200 crore to M/s Kalaignar TV Pvt. Ltd. during December 2008 to August 2009, following a circuitous route through M/s Kusegaon Fruits & Vegetables Pvt. Ltd. (a DB Group company) and M/s Cineyug Films Pvt. Ltd.
These two charge-sheets were tried together in a single trial. Arguments on charges were heard by the special judge and charges were framed in the matter on 22.10.2011.
