Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 26 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Monday sought the nod of the trial court dealing with the second generation (2G) spectrum case to frame fresh charges against the 17 accused, including former telecom minister A. Raja. Raja demanded that Home Minister P. Chidambaram should be examined as a witness in the case.

The probe agency asked Special Judge O.P. Saini for permission to frame charges for criminal breach of trust by a public servant against Raja, his former aide R.K. Chandolia, and former telecom secretary Siddartha Behura.

Criminal breach of trust is a non-bailable offence with punishment that stretches from 10 years to life.

Special Public Prosecutor U.U. Lalit said that a case of framing of charges for criminal breach of trust under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was certainly made out against Raja, Chandolia and Behura.

“It is submitted that accused one, two and three (Raja, Behura and Chandolia) were public servants having a dominion over valuable 2G spectrum in their respective capacities as public servants,” the application said.

The agency also pressed for charges of criminal breach read with criminal conspiracy against the remaining 14 co-accused in the 2G scam, including Raja’s party colleague and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi.

The other 14 co-accused include three companies.

“Besides Raja and two former officials, all others, including Kanimozhi and three telecom firms should be charged under section 409 (criminal breach) read with 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC,” the application states.

The other accused include Swan Telecom’s Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Wireless’ Sanjay Chandra and Reliance Group’s Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nayar, besides three companies - Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Reliance Telecom.

These people apart, agency has also named as co-accused Kalaignar TV’s Sharad Kumar, Cineyug Film`s Karim Morani, and the directors of Kusegaon, Asif Balwa and Rajeev B. Agarwal.

Counsel for the accused opposed the plea, saying that the probe agency was using delaying tactics for the trial. Till now, charges against the accused could have subjected them to a maximum imprisonment of seven years.

Raja’s counsel Sushil Kumar said Chindambaram, who was the then finance minister, signed all documents related to spectrum allocation and should be summoned and examined as a witness.

“Chidambaram was party to all decisions, I am not calling him an accused but he knew everything. He was acquainted with all the facts and circumstances of the case,” said Raja.

Raja left it to the court to decide if it wanted to call Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a witness.

Raja also targeted Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh and said: “As head of a group of ministers (GoM) in 2003, Singh decided against auctioning spectrum, so he should also be questioned.”

In a related development, the hearing of Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy’s application to make Chidambaram a co-accused in the case was deferred till Oct 12, with the court hoping that the Supreme Court will decide on the issue by then.