New Delhi, Jan 11 (IANS) Former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Nripendra Mishra Wednesday began testifying as a prosecution witness in the 2G spectrum scam case amid protests from counsel for key accused over absence of key documents of the testimony.

Former telecom minister A. Raja’s counsel Sushil Kumar told Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Judge O.P. Saini that some of the documents, mentioned in Mishra’s testimony to the CBI, have not been made available.

After some examination of Mishra by the probe agency, the judge deferred the hearing for Thursday.

“Certain documents are not on record and an application filed by the prosecution is comming up for disposal tomorrow (Thuesday) regarding placing of those documents on record on the prayer of both parties,” said Judge Saini.

S.P. Minocha, appearing for former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, told the court that there exists no grounds to allow the application of the prosecution for filing documents which are not part of the judicial record.

Minocha said that taking on record these documents at this stage would cause serious prejudice to the defence of the accused and would amount to denial of justice and fair trial to the accused.

Minocha added that the CBI filed the charge sheet in April 2011 and then a supplementary charge sheet, but the prosecution did not choose to file these documents with the supplementary charge sheet.

During his testimony, Mishra said that during his tenure as TRAI chief, Dayanidhi Maran and Raja were the telecom ministers and Brijesh Kumar, J.S. Sharma, D.S. Mathur and Sidharath Behura the secretaries successively.

He said the government was the final body for decision-making, but the telecommunication department may send a reference seeking recommendation of the TRAI.

“TRAI can give suo moto recommendation on some subjects and it is mandatory for the government to seek the recommendation of TRAI and in case of any difference, make a second reference,” said Mishra.

According to the government auditor, the 2G scam, allegedly masterminded by Raja, pertained to a biased distribution of mobile airwaves and operating licences, in lieu of kickbacks, to telecom firms that could have cost the treasury up to Rs.1.76 lakh crore in lost revenue.

Nineteen individuals and six companies are accused in the case. Except for Raja and Behura, all other arrested accused have been released on bail.