No evidence of any cheating: Court
I am glad that the court has pronounced unambiguously that all this massive propaganda which was being done against the UPA was without any foundation One thing is clear... the allegation of a major scam involving the highest levels of government was never true and not correct and that has been established today The Congress is treating 2G verdict as a badge of honour, but its zero loss theory was proven wrong when the Supreme Court quashed spectrum allocation in February 2012 9 YEARS ON Pick by pick, the special court stamped ‘not guilty’ on everyone accused as per the charges levelled by the CBI in the most highprofile case of corruption from the UPA era. It summed up the case as thus: misreading, selective reading, nonreading, out of context reading NEWDELHI:Former
telecom minister A Raja, DMK leader and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and 33 other accused including companies were given a clean chit by the 2G special court in New Delhi on Thursday, when it ruled that ‘case of high political corruption’ was not made out against any one charged by the CBI and ED.
Touted to have caused a loss of ~1.76 lakh crore to the public exchequer, the court ruled ‘no evidence of cheating’ or ‘criminal breach of trust’ was made out against any of the accused.
Assailing the CBI charges, the court said: “The charge sheet 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 they have not owned up in the witness box. Lastly, if statements were made orally, the same were contrary to the official record and thus, not acceptable in law.”
The court also said, “examination of the action or inaction of officials belonging to various departments, that is, DoT, law ministry, finance ministry and the PMO, shows that the controversy about the issue of LOIs on 10.01.2008 and subsequent grant of licences and allocation of spectrum arose due to unnecessary questions and objections raised by some officials and unwarranted suggestions put forward by others. None of these suggestions were carried to logical conclusion and were left unaddressed. These were used by others to create controversy. “
The court criticised the delay in recording of witness statements. “It is clear that three most important functionaries of the DoT were examined by the CBI at a highly belated stage. “This unwarranted delay coupled with the type of hype around the case indicates the witnesses may be under pressure or even coerced to toe the prosecution line.”
Acquitting the 35 individuals and companies in the case, the court said there was not one credible witness. “No witness from DoT deposed that any deception was practised upon him by any of the accused. There is absolutely no evidence to the effect that any false representation was made. Hence, there is no merit in the submission that by altering this A Raja (garlanded) with DMK supporters and Kanimozhi (right) with her husband after their acquittal in the 2G case. Arvind Yadav/HT POLITICIANS CORPORATES
Former Union telecom minister
Former telecom secretary COMPANIES
M/s Reliance Telecom Ltd.
M/s Loop Mobile (India) Ltd
M/s Loop Telecom
Indian engineering service (IES) officer, personal secretary, telecom minister Ltd (formerly BPL Mobile Communications) M/s Essar Teleholdings Ltd note, Raja and Behura cheated DoT officials into believing that the altered policy had the concurrence of learned SG. Accordingly, there is absolutely no evidence of cheating on record.”
Criticising the role of Telecom ministry officials, the court asserted, “Notes recorded by various officers are in highly illegible handwriting. Furthermore, the notes are either cryptic, even telegraphic, or extremely lengthy, recorded in highly technical and layered language, which cannot easily be understood by others, but can conveniently be used for finding fault with the superior authorities for agreeing to or disagreeing from it, as the case may be. Notes have also been recorded on extreme margins of the note sheet, some of which have become frayed with the passage of time and cannot be read and understood properly. Nonunderstanding of the official notes by outside agency creates an impression of wrongdoing. P CHIDAMBARAM, senior Congress leader Former DMK MP and director/ promoter, Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd M/s Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd M/s Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd Managing director, Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, now Etisalat
DB Telecom Pvt Ltd
Director, Swan Telecom, and managing director, DB Realty
Manging director, Unitech Ltd
Managing director, Reliance ADA group
President, Reliance ADA group
Vice president, Reliance ADA group
Director, Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd
Director, Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd
Director, Cineyug Media & Entertainment Pvt Ltd
Director/promoter, Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd
Vice-chairman, Essar group
Promoter, Essar group Promoter, Khaitan group
Former director, Santa Trading Pvt Ltd
Director, strategy, Essar group CHARGES/ALLEGATIONS
A Raja conspired to give benefits to M/s Swan Telecom (company of Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka) and to Sanjay Chandra’s Unitech, in the issuance of LOIs, UAS Licences and Spectrum by DoT
A cut-off date on receipt and processing of UASL applications, so the system can be manipulated to benefit a favoured few
The ‘first come first serve’ policy was changed to ‘first compliance first serve’ without disclosing to the public but only to a favoured few, who, with all the documents ready, took advantage by getting LOIs, UASL and Spectrum
Swan Telecom was the front company of Reliance Communications, which already had UASL. But to conceal the violation of Clause 8 of UASL guidelines, a mechanism was devised to conceali the true ownership of the former company The dual technology policy was manipulated, thereby defeating the right of Tata Teleservices and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Government of India was cheated by non-revision of entry fee Dynamix Realty, a partnership firm of DB Realty, and other DB group firms, paid ~200 crore to Kalaignar TV during December 2008 and August 2009, following a circuitous route through Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables (a DB group firm) and Cineyug Films Pvt Ltd