Thaindian News

New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) A CBI special court here, while rejecting the bail pleas of DMK MP Kanimozhi and seven other accused in the 2G scam, Thursday said that there is valid reason to keep them behind bars, indicating that the rights of witnesses and victims need to be protected.

“If an accused is required to be kept in custody during trial, the reason for the same must be valid, both in law and fact. Having said that, I may also record that the rights of the victims and witnesses are also no less valuable and are required to be protected equally during trial,” said Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge O.P. Saini.

“The victim and witnesses cannot be left to their own fate while protecting the right of the accused,” he said.

“They also must have a sense of safety and security and must have a feeling that no harm would come their way by just being witnesses in a case and disclosing the truth before the investigation agency and the court,” the court said in his 76-page order.

Besides Kanimozhi, the other seven accused whose bail applications were dismissed were: Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, former communications minister A. Raja’s then private secretary R.K. Chandolia, Kalaignar TV chief Sharad Kumar, directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt. Ltd. Asif Balwa and Rajiv B. Agarwal, Bollywood producer Karim Morani and former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura.

The CBI did not oppose the bail pleas of Kanimozhi, Sharad Kumar, Asif Balwa, Agarwal and Morani.

Judge Saini said: “The rights of an accused are very important in our criminal jurisprudence and they are required to be protected under all circumstances and in our constitutional scheme of things they cannot be trampled upon. It is the solemn duty of a court to protect the same.”

But if witnesses did not gather the courage to tell the truth before the court…the truth would not come out and the cause of justice would suffer, the court said.

For protecting the right of victims and witnesses, the accused should be kept in judicial custody till evidence was complete, the court said.

All 17 accused in the case, including the eight bail seekers, were charged with conspiracy to commit forgery, criminal breach of trust, cheating, use of forged documents, receipt and payment of bribe and criminal misconduct.