Special court denies bail to five telecom executives
20 Apr 2011
A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of five telecommunications executives, named as co-accused in the 2G trial scam. They are expected to be sent to judicial custody.
The executives include Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech and Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara of Reliance Communications. The CBI has named them as co-accused along with former telecommunications minister A Raja, his personal assistant R K Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura and Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa. All four are currently in judicial custody.
The CBI had opposed the bail plea of the five executives on the ground that they could compromise the safety of key witnesses. According to the CBI, Raja had granted undue favours to Unitech and Swan Telecom while allocating the 2G spectrum.
The former minister, a close aide of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) chief – and Tamil Nadu chief minister – M Karunanidhi, also allegedly took bribes from the firms.
His decision to grant 2G licenses to a favoured few resulted in a potential revenue loss of about Rs1.76 lakh crore, according to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The CBI, in its charge-sheet filed against Raja and eight others (including the telecom executives) claimed that the loss to the exchequer amounted to Rs.31,000 crore.
In the 80,000-page document, the CBI charged the accused of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and corruption. Special prosecutor U.U. Lalit told the court that Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd was a front company for the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, set up to 'circumvent' the telecom policy, which debarred existing players from seeking 2G licenses.
