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This is an archive article published on October 21, 2011

2G: Court to pronounce order on framing of charges tomorrow

The trial of the accused will begin after the court pronounces its order on framing of charges in the case.

A Delhi court is likely to pronounce tomorrow its order on framing of charges against 17 accused,including former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi,for their alleged roles in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini,after hearing day-to-day arguments on behalf of accused and the CBI for nearly two months,had reserved his orders on October 14.

The trial of the accused would begin after the court pronounces its order on framing of charges in the case.

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They have been charged for various offences of the IPC dealing with criminal conspiracy,forgery and cheating. Besides these,Raja and other public servants have been charged with misuse of official position punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The court would also decide as to whether the additional charges of criminal breach of trust,invoked by CBI during the arguments on charges,would be slapped the accused. The new charge entails a sentence of life term on conviction.

Besides Raja and Kanimozhi,other accused in the case include the minister’s former Private Secretary R K Chandolia,former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura,DMK-run Kalaignar TV’s MD Sharad Kumar,Bollywood filmmaker Karim Morani and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group’s executives Gautam Doshi,Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.

Besides telecom firms Reliance Telecom Ltd,Swan Telecom and Unitech (Tamil Nadu) Wireless Ltd,the other accused in the case include Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa,Asif Balwa and Rajeev Agarwal,Unitech Ltd’s MD Sanjay Chandra and DB Realty MD Vinod Goenka.

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The CBI,in its first charge sheet filed on April 2,had accused Raja and others of causing a huge loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer by allocating spectrum to ineligible operators as per a criminal conspiracy among themselves.

Special CBI Prosecutor U U Lalit had argued that there was “sufficient prima facie” evidence against all the accused to proceed with the trial as everyone of them was part of the conspiracy and the intent to commit offence “may be inferred from their knowledge”.

On the other hand,all accused,including Raja,had vehemently opposed the framing of charges and the plea of CBI that they caused a loss to the state in the grant of spectrum licenses.

Raja,during the arguments,sought to drag names of the Prime Minister and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the case saying they were kept apprised about the developments in the 2G spectrum allocation.

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