The CBI, after resisting the demand to probe Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s alleged role in 2G spectrum allocation, sprang a surprise in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, stating that its investigators have decided to register an FIR against former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal.
The CBI counsel made a sudden announcement regarding placing before the apex court a status report in this regard amidst arguments on Mr Maran’s alleged role in blocking Aircel promoter C. Sivasankaran’s application for spectrum for two years, between 2004 and 2006, and allegedly “coercing” him to offload his stake in favour of Malaysia-based telecom company Maxis.
The status report, placed by CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal before a bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, said the investigators probing the “preliminary enquiry” registered earlier against Mr Maran had come to the conclusion that it has to be converted into a first information report.
The investigators’ final report on registration of an FIR has gone through the “two levels” of assessment by middle-rung officers, as required under the CBI manual, and “it has yet to go to the other three levels of officers before the FIR has to be finally registered”, he said.
To a specific query by the bench on whether the investigation against Mr Maran was still on, Mr Venugopal said, “Yes, it is continuing.”
“The final recommendation as to against whom the FIR is to be registered is complete. In two to three weeks it (procedure for registering an FIR) will be over and a chargesheet will be filed after that,” the CBI counsel said.
Mr Venugopal’s statement to this effect was made when advocate Prashant Bhushan, the main petitioner in the 2G case, was reading out the details of allegations against Mr Maran and accusing the agency of “not being honest” in its investigation against him and some major telecom companies left out of the probe. “We have a status report ready against Dayanidhi Maran. Your Lordships can see it,” Mr K.K. Venugopal said.