Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 29 (IANS) The charges against Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra in the 2G case revealed the Central Bureau of Investigation’s incompetence and lack of knowledge of criminal law and should be quashed, the Supreme Court was told Monday.

There was only one chargesheet in the case for all the accused, “which is a legal impossibility” under criminal law, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani said while seeking bail for Chandra before an apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice H.L. Dattu.

Jethmalani said that the CBI case against Chandra deserved to be quashed.

He told the court that Chandra could not be hauled up by the investigating agency on the charges of cheating and conspiracy for securing licences for the telecom arm of Unitech.

He said that there was nothing in the evidence advanced by the CBI which pointed to allegations of cheating and conspiracy. The evidence were so clumsy that it “would require two minutes to demolish it”, Jethmalani told the court.

The senior counsel said that before a conspiracy could be alleged against a person, there had to be a reasonable ground that a conspiracy had been executed or committed.

He said that a conspiracy could be proved either by the evidence of one of the conspirator or strong circumstantial evidence. Jethmalani said that the investigating agency could not produce anything against his client.

Tracing the history of the opening of the telecom sector to private players, Jethmalani said that what his client did was a legitimate activity.

“This is legitimate capitalism. Provided that after making (monitory) gains you pay taxes to the government. Operation under free market economy and inviting foreign investment was legitimate capitalism,” he said.

Brushing aside the allegation that the telecom operator made a quick buck by selling its shares to a foreign investor after it got 2G licence and spectrum, Jethmalani said that foreign investors were given additional shares of the company and none of the shares belonging to his client were off-loaded.

The court was told that the condition for the grant of bail did not involve that the accused should prove his innocence.

Jethmalani said that the two considerations for bail were that the accused would make himself available to the law enforcement agencies and would not misuse his liberty after grant of bail.

Pointing to some judgments of the court, Jethmalani said that bail jurisprudence that was built over the years since 1977 had been subverted.

He would continue his arguments Sep 5.