After assessing the latest CBI and ED status reports on the 2G scam, the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a two-day extension in its deadline to file the first chargesheet against the four accused, including former communications minister A. Raja.
The CBI, which resisted the demand by a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly to show it the chargesheet, pledged it would be filed on April 2 to ensure none of the arrested accused got “mandatory bail” on the expiry of the 60-day judicial remand if the chargesheet was not filed within the stipulated period under CrPC.
“That is our primary concern — that the arrested persons don’t get bail,” CBI special counsel K.K. Venugopal said. Mr Raja and the other accused, against whom the first 80,000-page chargesheet (including annexures) would be filed, face charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, fraud and under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Two companies — Unit-ech and Swan (now Etislat DB Telecom Ltd) — are likely to figure. Besides Mr Raja, the others include his former private secretary R.K. Chandolia, former tel-ecom secretary Sidharth Behura and DB Reality’s Shahid Balwa. The bench sought replies from the CBI and ED on an application seeking handing over of the probe into the mysterious death of Raja’s close aide Sadiq Batcha in Chennai to the CBI.