All acts of a company can't be attributed to MD: Sunil Mittal's counsel

NEW DELHI: Bharti telecom chairman Sunil Mittal's legal counsel Harish Salve Thursday told a newly constituted Supreme Court bench that all acts of a company cannot be attributed to its managing director and demanded that the apex court stay the summons issued against his client by a lower court. Earlier this month, Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia had moved the apex court for quashing summons issued by a lower court in a case related to alleged irregularities and losses in allocation of airwaves in 2002 when BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power. The CBI special court in March had 'summoned as accused' Mittal, Ruia and former managing director of Hutchison Max (now Vodafone) Asim Ghosh on the grounds that these executives chaired board meetings and controlled their respective companies' affairs.

But the CBI court has been directed to proceed against these executives only after the Supreme Court decides in their appeals.

"This order (of the lower court) must go," Mittal's lawyer Harish Salve told a two-judge bench comprising justices CJI Altamas Kabir and SS Nijjar.

Earlier, CBI as well as a NGO that is also party to the case insisted that the Supreme Court bench transfer the case to the to the 2G bench headed by justice G S Singhvi as the latter had been monitoring the probe into the 2G spectrum scam.- Our Bureau