Explore special court for 2G trial: SC to Govt

NEW DELHI: Former telecom minister A Raja, his private secretary RK Chandolia, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura and DB Realty promoter Shahid Balwa are set to be chargesheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, by March 31 and tried by a special court for their role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.


The resumption of the hearing on the 2G spectrum scam on Thursday saw the Supreme Court favouring expeditious trial. The bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly asked Attorney General GE Vahanvati to explore with the Centre the possibility of setting up a special court dealing exclusively with the 2G scam cases.


The country's chief law officer agreed with the bench, and said the government would welcome any such move. The Court asked the AG to seek directions from the Centre for setting up a special court on the lines of the one constituted way back in 1992 to try the cases arising out of the securities scam. On a day in which a special judge in the Patiala House courts acceded to CBI's request to extend the remand of both Raja and Balwa to enable it to complete its probe on the money trail - allegedly bribe money that had changed hands in the sale of the 2G licenses -CBI and the Enforcement Directorate submitted their status reports in the Supreme Court in sealed covers on the progress in unearthing the scam.

CBI, which had in October, 2009, filed a case against unknown persons, said charges under sections 120-B, 420 (cheating), 471 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as section 13 (2) read with section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, which deal with the impropriety and irregularities committed by public servants, were clearly made out against the former telecom minister and other accused in the case. The investigative agency, in its status report, underlined the steps taken by it so far as part of its probe into the scam which included the arrests of a former Cabinet minister and his close associates.


It also informed the court about the attempts allegedly made by Balwa to spurn its efforts to bring him to its headquarters here, forcing it to arrest him. "There are a lot of persons who think they are a law unto themselves. Law must catch them and it must be done with a lot of expedition. Merely because he is in the list of Forbes millionaires does not mean law will be lax,'' the bench said at this stage. It expressed its dissatisfaction over the CBI's failure to nab the beneficiaries of the scam. "But who are the beneficiaries ? There was a larger conspiracy and the CBI must look into the ED's first status report,'' the bench said.

Money Trail


The latter, in this document, had highlighted the trail of the alleged 'kickback' money. In excerpts read out in court the Directorate talked about 33. 7 million pounds being 'funnelled' by 15 companies without referring to specifics. It also talked of Singapore $ 625 million being paid by a section of the beneficiaries. It was not clear what transactions were being described and details were not available. The status report also talked about agricultural land worth 3.34 crore being purchased by a chunk of what it referred to as the "scam money".


The court wanted senior advocate KK Venugopal, who was appearing on behalf of CBI, to report back by March 1 on the progress made by the agency in exploring the role of conspirators. "Obviously, these beneficiaries are part of the conspiracy,'' the bench remarked, as it asked CBI to go after the big players. We will make an endeavour not to allow frustration of the probe. We will take it to the logical conclusion. CBI is answerable to the court directly. No one should interfere in the probe in any manner,'' the judges said.


The CBI status report, it is learnt, also reported the efforts made by it to track the money trail, which had taken their probe at the doorsteps of Kalaignar TV, a television channel owned by members of the family of M Karunanidhi, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. The ED status report too had spoken about the money being allegedly ploughed back to Kalaignar TV. Both reports were describing a transaction between a company, Cineyug, linked to DB Realty and Kalaignar TV. The transaction was extensively described by ET in a story last week. In statements to this paper both Kalaignar TV and DB Realty have denied that there was anything wrong with the fund transfer. Cineyug, they explained, intended to acquire a stake in the television broadcaster and money was advanced to acquire shares.

When the deal failed because of valuation differences the advance was turned into a loan. The CBI status report also said that its probe into "violations" committed by the public sector banks in distributing large amounts of loans to telecom players had not made much headway. The preliminary enquiry (PE) filed by it had been wound up already in the absence of any substantial evidence of any such violations. The CBI, in its status report, said that Trai's decision in 2003 on the allocation of spectrum was the "triggering point,'' which resulted in the present scam. While perusing it, the court said, "If this was the triggering point, we would like to know how did it happen and who managed Trai.''