Breaking | 2G Scam: Delhi High Court Admits CBI's Appeal Against Acquittal Of A Raja, Others

The Delhi High Court on Friday admitted the appeal moved by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging the acquittal of former telecom minister and current Lok Sabha MP, A Raja and various others in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case.

Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma pronounced the order on the leave to appeal filed by CBI. The verdict was reserved on March 14. Leave to appeal is permission granted to appeal against the decision of a court.

“The court on the basis of material on record, and after going through the sworn testimonies, material on record, impugned judgement and the submissions made at bar by both the parties has reached on an objective satisfaction that there is a prima facie case which requires deeper examination and re-appreciation/re-appraisal of entire evidence,” the court said.

It added that arguable points were made out by the CBI, thereby converting the grant of Leave to Appeal.

The verdict came in the matter almost 6 years after CBI moved court challenging the order of acquittal.

The first hearing in the case took place before the High Court on March 21, 2018. Till now, a total of 125 hearings took place before various judges.

It was CBI's case that there were “glaring illegalities” in the trial court order acquitting all the accused in the case. Senior Advocate Sanjay Jain (Senior Special Public Prosecutor) appeared for CBI.

While admitting the appeal, Justice Sharma said that the society or community is represented by the State and Prosecuting Agencies and, therefore the interest of the society cannot be ignored as “persona non grata.” 

“The fact that transaction of Rs.200 crores was reversed has to be seen holistically. The case of some of the accused persons cannot be segregated at this stage as the facts are so much interwoven with each other that it will be difficult to separate at this stage. It is also pertinent to mention that evidence oral in nature cannot be discarded out rightly merely because it is not corroborated by any documentary evidence. The evidence has to be weighed and not counted,” the court observed.

It further added that if there has been an un-merited acquittal, the scrutiny by the Appellate Court is the only available method to bring in correction wherever required. It added that the appellate scrutiny cannot begin without the threshold of leave being granted.

”The duty of this court is to ensure that Justice is not denied to anyone including the State on mere hyper- technicalities. The society has an expectation from the judicial dispensation system. Such faith or expectation cannot be permitted to be diluted by resorting to technical or unrealistic approach,” the court said.

On December 21, 2017, a special court here had acquitted A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and others from various offences arising out of the alleged Rs. 1.76 lakh crores 2G scam case.

Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, the court had also acquitted former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's former private secretary R K Chandolia, Unitech Limited MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair.

Others who were acquitted were Swan Telecom Private Limited, Unitech Wireless Limited, Reliance Telecom Limited, film producer Karim Morani and Sharad Kumar. Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal were also acquitted in the case.

The special court had also acquitted 19 accused persons in the ED case. Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, the court had acquitted Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Asif Balwa, Rajiv Aggarwal, Karim Morani, P. Amirtham, M.K. Dayalu Ammal and Sharad Kumar in the money laundering case.

In March, 2018, ED had approached the Delhi High Court against the acquittal order. Later, CBI also filed plea challenging the acquittal.

The CBI in its chargesheet filed in 2011 had alleged that Raja had conspired with his former private secretary R.K. Chandolia to shift the cut-off date for consideration of applications to be received up to September 25, 2007 for allotment of 2G spectrum to illegally benefit Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, Swan Telecom's Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka.

The chargesheet filed by the ED had also named nine companies as accused. Those were Kalaignar TV, STPL, Kusegaon Realty Ltd, Cineyug Media & Entertainment Ltd, Dynamix Realty, Eversmile Construction Company Ltd, Conwood Construction & Developers Ltd, DB Realty Ltd and Mystical Construction Ltd.

Title: CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION v. A RAJA & ORS

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 339

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