Former Telecom Minister A Raja today claimed he was being prosecuted in the 2G spectrum case as the CBI’s investigating officers (IOs) were unable to understand the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) files despite questioning him for about 15 months.
During the final arguments in 2G spectrum allocation scam case, Raja told the special court that he had explained to the IOs about the DoT files during questioning but they could not understand it.
“For 15 months, I was telling the IOs about the files but they were unable to understand the files. I was interrogated and I explained everything but the IOs did not understand the files and they prosecuted me,” Raja himself told Special CBI Judge O P Saini.
Raja’s counsel Manu Sharma told the court that CBI probed this case, alleged to be the biggest scam of the country, but had not investigated as to how the applications of Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd (TTML) went missing from the DoT’s Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) wing.
“What kind of investigation is this? Admitted fact is that the applications were missing from the WPC wing but still this was not investigated. CBI used this situation to pressurise the witness to depose against Siddharth Behura (former Telecom Secretary),” Sharma argued during the arguments, which would continue tomorrow.
He asked “Why did the CBI not fixed responsibility as to who was responsible for these missing files. The agency purportedly left this issue to pressurise the witness.”
Besides Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, Behura and 14 others, including three firms, are facing trial in the case.
Raja had earlier argued before the court that he had never misled then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on any issue relating to procedures to be followed for allocation of 2G spectrum allocation.
The other accused in the case are — Raja’s erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Unitech Ltd Managing Director Sanjay Chandra, Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd (STPL) promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka and three executives of Reliance ADAG – Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair.
Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV Director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also facing trial in the case, besides three telecom companies — Reliance Telecom Ltd, STPL and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd.
In its charge sheet, CBI had alleged a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of 122 licences for 2G spectrum, which was scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 2, 2012.
All these accused, who are out on bail, have denied the allegations levelled against them by CBI.
( Source – PTI )
