A Delhi court on Saturday framed charges against former IT and communications minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and 15 others in the 2G scam. The court found prima facie evidence against all the accused, including Mr Raja and Ms Kanimozhi and corporate honchos, to frame charges against them.
The setback for the accused came when special judge O.P. Saini accepted the CBI’s plea to add a charge under Section 409 of the IPC under which the accused, if found guilty, could get life imprisonment or a minimum punishment of 10 years.
The judge regretted the delay in framing of charges and said the court has found prima facie evidence to frame charges against Mr Raja’s former private secretary, Mr R.K. Chandolia, and former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura. It said there was evidence for charges to be framed against Mr Raja, Mr Behura and Mr Chandolia under IPC Sec. 409 for the offence of breach of trust. Apart from this, the rest of the accused were charged under IPC Sec. 120 B (criminal conspiracy).
However, the accused can now move for bail, as observed by the Supreme Court during the hearing of Ms Kanimozhi’s bail petition earlier. “As far as bail is concerned, in my view the order passed today is an important milestone in view of what the apex court had said some months earlier while deciding the bail pleas of Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar, that they can renew their bail pleas after framing of charges,” Mr Majid Memon, counsel for accused Shahid Usman Balwa, told reporters outside court. The court said the CBI has brought evidence to frame charges against telecom firms Reliance Telecom, Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu), including Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group MD Gautam Doshi, president Surendra Pipara and senior vice-president Hari Nair.
Others against whom charges will be framed are Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, his cousin Asif Balwa, their colleague Rajeev Agarwal, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and DB Realty MD Vinod Goenka. The judge said there was prima facie evidence for framing of charges against Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar and Bollywood filmmaker Karim Morani as well.
“Thereby, you all committed an offence punishable under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 409 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) 468 and 471 (forgery) of the IPC and Sec. 7 or in alternative Sec. 11 read with Sections 12 and 13(2) read with 13 (1b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and within my cognisance,” the judge said in his 700-page order.