HC rejects corporate execs’ bail plea in 2G case

In a development that bodes ill for DMK supremo M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV managing director Sharad Kumar, the Delhi high court today rejected the bail pleas of five corporate executives who were jailed in connection with the 2G spectrum scam.
 
The executives denied bail are Unitech group managing director Sanjay Chandra; Reliance ADAG managing director Gautam Doshi and ADAG senior vice-presidents Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara; and DB Realty promoter Vinod Goenka. They have been in jail since 20 April.
 
Kanimozhi and Kumar have today applied to the Delhi high court for bail, after the special CBI court set up to overlook the 2G spectrum sale case rejected their bail application. But the court's latest ruling has clearly dimmed their chances of a favourable order.
 
''All the five bail applications are baseless,'' justice Ajit Bharihoke said in his terse oral order on the five corporate executives. He did not bother to read out the operative portions of his order.
 
Opposing their bail plea, U U Lalit, the Supreme Court-appointed Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) prosecutor, said the corporate houses and individuals were direct beneficiaries of the scam as they were involved in a conspiracy along with former telecom minister A Raja to obtain benefits.
 
Raja is languishing in Delhi's Tihar Jail along with several other alleged accomplices, including Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, Raja's former personal secretary R K Chandolia, and directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajeev Agarwal.
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Their bail pleas were rejected earlier by the same court.
 
Unitech's Chandra and Swan's Goenka are accused of conspiring with Raja to get licenses and spectrum for mobile networks at throwaway prices.
 
Chandra has been chargesheeted for cheating and conspiracy. The CBI believes he was the one who came up with a plan centred on Raja abruptly advancing the bidding deadlines for spectrum and telecom licenses by a week in 2008.
 
The various agencies that have investigated what can now fairly be called a scam have concluded that Unitech and other 'favoured' companies like Reliance ADAG could have only raised the upfront bid money at suddenly shortened notice if they had prior knowledge of Raja's move.
 
This argument is the more convincing because the telecom spectrum and licences were sold by Raja on a 'first-come, first-served' basis, rather than by competitive auction.
 
Raja has claimed that he was only following the precedent set by the previous NDA government; but his claim of innocence is clearly not washing with either the investigating agencies or the court.
 
Last week Norway's Telenor Group, which holds a 67.25-per cent stake in Unitech Wireless,  reiterated its demand that Chandra to step down as the company's chairman of the board of directors in Unitech Wireless, after having sought his resignation in April (See: Telenor seeks replacement of Sanjay Chandra as chairman of Unitech Wireless). 
 
''Telenor Group has asked Unitech Ltd to appoint a substitute for Sanjay Chandra for as long as the 2G court case is ongoing in India," the company said in a release last Friday.