Close to a week after the DMK became the third largest party in the Lok Sabha, the CBI has moved the Delhi High Court to expedite hearing of its appeal against the acquittal of the accused in the 2G spectrum allocation case. The accused include former Union Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK’s newly-elected Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi, daughter of former Chief Minister and late party chief M Karunanidhi. A source in the CBI confirmed that the High Court will now hear the plea to expedite on July 30 and that notices have been issued to the accused.
On 21 December 2017, a special court in New Delhi acquitted all the 17 accused in the case including Kanimozhi and A Raja. The verdict was based on the fact that CBI could not find any evidence against them in the seven years of investigation and trial. Special CBI judge OP Saini had said, “Some people created a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things beyond recognition to astronomical levels.”
The DMK had faced a massive electoral loss in the 2011 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections and 2014 Lok Sabha Elections as backlash to the alleged corruption in allocation of 2G license. The state is set to head for its next polls in 2021 and local body elections could be held as early as August. The move comes a day after the Narendra Modi-led government was sworn in.
Speaking to TNM, Kanimozhi says, “We have to ask the government why this case is suddenly being expedited. We faced the courts, we didn’t try to postpone or drag the case. We tried to finish it as soon as possible. All those accused were proved to be innocent by the trial court. Judge OP Saini had given a very clear judgement. Why should they expedite the case? But whatever it is we will face it.”
The CBI’s decision to move against the acquittal comes after a scathing verdict from Justice OP Saini who said that, “…I have absolutely no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any charge against any of the accused, made in its well-choreographed chargesheet…There is no evidence on the record produced before the court indicating any criminality in the acts allegedly committed by the accused persons…The chargesheet of the instant case is based mainly on misreading, selective reading, nonreading and out of context reading of the official record…The chargesheet is based on some oral statements made by the witnesses during the investigation, which the witnesses have not owned up in the witness box.”
The CBI in its chargesheet had alleged that there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in the allocation of licenses for the 2G spectrum. In addition to the DMK leaders, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Chandolia, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair were also acquitted in the CBI’s case.
Source: The News Minute