Demanding for fast tracking in 2G cases appeal, on the very first day of hearing of CBI and ED’s appeal on May 25 in Delhi High Court, the Special Public Prosecutor Tushar Mehta said the 2G Scam is a monumental scam and shame on the Nation. He was objecting to the usual delaying tactics played by some accused claiming that they have not yet received notice and some demanding for more time to reply for the notice issued on March. Now the case is heard by Justice SP Garg and he is going to retire in June and a new Judge has to hear the appeal arguments from August first week.
As rightly demanded by Tushar Mehta, the appeal of CBI and ED against the very bad judgment of trial court Judge OP Saini must be heard on daily basis. The Judiciary must take call to the undo the bad trail court judgment, which is totally against the findings of Supreme Court and Delhi High Court. It is another question, how trial Judge OP Saini arrived in such a bizarre conclusions and totally ignored the concrete proofs of money transfers between former Telecom Minister Raja’s firm and his party controlled TV channel from co-accused telecom operators.
The very idea of the accused persons now acquitted is to drag the appeal process to four – five years. Such is the level of money spin in this case which I can vouch as a reporter who started tracking this humongous scam from late 2008. The more than 1500-page judgment of the trail court is totally bad in law with many errors and full of false narrative. I have read this bad Judgment of Judge OP Saini many times and it is totally against the Supreme Court Judgment cancelling all the 122 licences. It is also against the Delhi High Court’s Judgment which was ratified by Division Bench and Supreme Court on the allotment of licences on dubious First-Come-First-Serve basis by Minister A.Raja.
CBI and ED in its appeal petition described Judge OP Saini’s judgment as totally erroneous. The Judge has ignored the spirit of Prevention of Corruption Act and even went up to give clean chit to Minister A.Raja by putting blame of officers. The trail Judge has even blamed officers whom he has not yet examined. Without examining a person, how Judge blamed then PMO’s top officers TKA Nair and Pulok Chatterjee. Don’t know why these two officers keeping criminal silence when they were blamed by trial judge without examining them. They should have approached Delhi High Court at least to rectify this. Are they shouldering the sin committed by their boss and real boss?
Above all, the trial court Judgment is totally against the landmark judgments Shamsher Singh Judgment and Bhajan Lal Judgments on corruption cases. The Shamesher Singh Judgment clearly says Minister is the final responsible person and not the officers. Here Judge Saini erratically put blame on officers and doubtfully gives clean chit to Raja, who is indicted by Supreme Court on many words while cancelling the 122 licences in February 2012.
Judge OP Saini has totally ignored the crucial witnesses and terms them as they have political differences with Raja. This is totally against the spirit of the Bhajan Lal judgment which says the political differences is not at all the matter and only fact of the statements only to be considered. If a person is a friend will he depose against? The cases crop up due to difference of opinion and this is a basic fact. Judiciary has only to look into the facts raised by the witness and not the other matters. I have submitted a detailed note on the errors and faults in the trial court Judgment to CBI, ED and Special Public Prosecutor as dutiful citizen of this country.
Now Enforcement Directorate (ED) is seeking data from Stock Exchange Board of India (SEBI) doubting on the prior knowledge of some accused about the controversial Judgment of Judge OP Saini. According to ED, few weeks before the Judgment, there was a huge volume of buying in the almost dead shares of certain companies owned by accused persons. It is high time to finish the probe on this regard and the agencies as well as Judiciary must fast track this probe on the fixing of cases.
The Government, CBI, ED and Special Public Prosecutor must reiterate their demands for the fast track hearing on the appeal against controversial 2G Judgment in Delhi High Court. The Delhi High Court must allot specific time for daily hearing in 2G cases and Chief Justice must take a call to bring justice in the trial court’s judgment which itself looks like erroneous.
[J Gopikrishnan is Special Correspondent with ‘The Pioneer’ daily]
Comments (0)