Withholding of crucial documents, concealment of important facts and contradiction in statements of prosecution witnesses led to collapse of CBIs case in the 2002 additional spectrum allocation scam case. Special CBI Judge O. P. Saini, who discharged former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms –Bharti Cellular Ltd., Hutchison Max Pvt. Ltd. and Sterling Cellular Ltd. in the case, said that CBI totally failed to prove its allegations. The court said that various documents, which were dubbed as unrelied upon by CBI, were “most important documents” and the agency had deliberately rendered it as inconsequential. It added that the agency wanted to give the impression that a grave crime had been committed when none had been done by “fabricating facts”.
It pointed out that TRAI reports and many other relevant documents were not filed in the court, adding that these facts “did not even find mention in the statements of witnesses.” CBI’s conduct in “relegating these (TRAI and other relevant) documents to a distant stage by not making them part of documents initially filed with the chargesheet and then dubbing them as unrelied upon and not placing on record certain other documents having important bearing on the case” went totally against the agency.
CBI’s allegation that Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had not obtained the required recommendation from TRAI prior to allocation of additional spectrum, fell flat. “I find myself in agreement with the defence counsel that TRAI recommendations were already there and DoT was not required to ask for fresh recommendations,” the judge said. The court noted that the previous TRAI recommendations of June 23, 2000 and October 24, 2000 had covered both inadequacy of the existing spectrum to the existing operators and also need for additional spectrum and also the rate at which spectrum was to be charged.
There were also contradiction in statements of prosecution witnesses which proved that CBI’s allegations were not true. The court pointed out several discrepancies in the statements of then Deputy Director General of DoT J. R. Gupta and then Wireless Advisor P. K. Gupta on whether then Member Finance was consulted before allocation of additional spectrum. CBI had alleged that former Telecom Minister Pramod Mahajan had taken this “hasty decision” on recommendation of Ghosh without consulting relevant bodies. The court, however, trashed CBI’s version and said the decision was “well debated and discussed.”
The court lambasted CBI for “deliberately” concealing and “changing its stand” over certain documents. The court added that it was because of this confusion that it summoned Bharti Cellular Ltd. CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal, Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia and Asim Ghosh, then Managing Director of accused firm Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt. Ltd. as “additional accused” in the case. These three were not chargesheeted as accused in the case but were summoned by the court on March 19,2013 which relied on some documents placed by CBI. However, CBI later declared that it was not relying on these documents.
“The unrelied upon documents are by and large considered to be of no use to the prosecution. In the instant case, on January 14, 2013 and also in the application dated January 30, 2013, the prosecution referred to documents as unrelied upon, but in the course of submission changed its stand that these documents may also be taken as relied upon one. This change of stand distracted the attention of the court from these documents. In a sense, these documents lost credibility,” the court observed. On January 9 this year, Supreme Court had set aside the special court’s order summoning Mittal and Ruia, who was then a Director in Sterling Cellular Ltd., as accused in the case.
In 2012, CBI had filed a chargesheet in the case alleging a scam during the NDA regime in 2002. It had named Ghosh, Hutchison Max (P) Ltd., Sterling Cellular Ltd. and Bharti Cellular Ltd. as accused, claiming that on account of the conspiracy between these accused, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) allocated additional spectrum that had allegedly led to a loss of Rs 846.44 crore to the exchequer. The chargesheet also named former Telecom Minister Pramod Mahajan as an accused and alleged criminality on his part. However, since Mahajan had passed away, the proceedings against him were abated. (Remarks: The credibility & reliability of CBI is so low & yet the Establishment goes on entrusting more & more cases to CBI !!!)
(Source: The Times of India dated 16-10-2015.)
