2G Scam: Bail hearing of corporates today

The Delhi High Court is expected to hear the bail pleas of corporate heavyweights named in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheet for their alleged connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam on Tuesday.

On Wednesday the court had asked the federal investigating agency to come up with replies to the new grounds of bail produced by the telecoms execs.

A special court of the CBI on Wednesday rejected interim bail pleas after hearing the applications moved by Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech, and three officials of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhani Ambani group -Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.

Giving his verdict, Special CBI Judge O P Saini said: “All the bail applications have been rejected.”

The five corporates are likely to be remanded in judicial custody.

On Apr 15, the court had reserved the hearing of the bail pleas.

The CBI had opposed the bail pleas and sought detention of the five corporates on Friday, saying there are possibilities that the accused will flee the country if granted bail.

“The accused are holding high positions and now that the names of witnesses are disclosed, some of whom are directly working under (them) or are amenable to their directions, possibility of winning over and/or influencing the witnesses is clearly present,” the CBI had told Judge O P Saini.

“Considering the matter on record, complicity of present accused in the crime is clearly made out. The act complained of and offences alleged are far serious having made deep inroads in public interest and financial affairs of the state,” the CBI had said.

The CBI had named the five corporate along with former telecoms minister A Raja, his personal aide RK Chandolia, former telecoms secretary Siddhartha Behura, and Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa in its 80,000-page chargesheet.

In perhaps the biggest scam in Independent India, allegedly masterminded by ex-minister A Raja, telecoms spectrum was given away at throwaway prices in 2008 causing a potential revenue loss of up to Rs 1.76 crore.