CBI produces Raja in court

Soon after 2 pm today,the CBI produced Raja,former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura and the former minister’s personal secretary R K Chandolia before special CBI judge O P Saini at the Patiala House Courts.

As soon as he was produced,the special judge granted Raja’s counsel a 10-minute private conversation with the former minister.

The former minister and his his ex-associates R K Chandolia and Siddharth Behura were arrested by the CBI on Wednesday on charges that they allegedly did not follow right procedures in the grant of 2G licences and spectrum to telecom companies,thereby causing the national exchequer losses running into thousands of crores.

According to the CBI,Raja and his associates abused their official position to manipulate the tendering process by advancing cut-off dates,asking licencees to deposit fees within a week,and introducing an arbitrary first-come-first-served principle that benefited some firms.

The 47-year-old five-time MP was arrested after daylong questioning at the CBI headquarters in New Delhi.

Raja is the first former minister to be arrested for corruption by the government of which he was part. The other telecom minister who suffered a similar fate,Sukh Ram,was arrested in 1996 after the United Front government came to power.

Chandolia had been on the radar of the CBI and Enforcement Directorate since the scam broke in 2009. Behura was among those raided by the CBI in connection with the scam last year. More arrests were likely after the CBI submits an interim status report to the Supreme Court,sources said.

Top DMK sources said party president and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi,who returned to Chennai from Delhi after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi last night,knew what was going to happen on Wednesday.