The last few days have seen a lot of activity in the 2G spectrum scandal case in India as a special CBI court reserved its order on the bail pleas of DMK MP Kanimozhi and six others until Nov. 3. The 2G spectrum case involves illegally awarding spectrum to new telecom players in 2007 and 2008 at low rates.
The bail pleas came up after the 17 accused in the case were formally charged with criminal breach of trust, forgery, bribery and falsification of evidence. The trial is set to begin Nov. 11.
“You all committed an offence punishable under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) 468 and 471 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7 or in alternative Section 11 read with Section 12 and 13(2) read with 13 (1b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and within my cognizance,” the judge said in his 700-page order, as reported by a daily.
The 17 accused in the case include: former telecom minister A. Raja; former telecom secretary Siddarth Behura; Raja’s private secretary R. K. Chandolia; Reliance ADAG executives Gautam Doshi, Surrendra Pipar and Hari Nair’ Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra; Swam telecom boss Shahid Balwa; DB Realty’s MD Vinod Goenka; Kalaignar TV’s Sharat Kumar; DMK MP Kanimozhi; directors of Kusegaon Fruits & Vegetables Rajiv Agarwal and Asif Balwa; film maker Karim Morani; Reliance Telecommunication, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu); and Swan Telecom.
According to the CBI charges, the loss to the exchequer as a result of the scam was around $7 billion. The special CBI court judge O. P. Saini said “the CBI has rightly arrived at a rough estimate of the loss to the exchequer as in such a situation it was not possible for anyone to calculate the exact amount of loss,” reported a national daily.
The special CBI court said it would hear a petition to include Union Home Minister P Chidambarm a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case on Nov. 8.
