A local court has acquitted an MTNL official and seven others accused of running telephone booths for making international calls through phones meant to make local calls and defrauding the state exchequer of nearly Rs 1.82 crore in 1998. Special CBI judge Dharmesh Sharma discharged MTNL Junior Telecom Officer (JTO) H J Singh and seven other south Delhi residents saying that the CBI did not have "an iota of evidence",and it also made a complete mess of the case,in which the agency had gone on to allege international transfer of money through illegal hawala channels without any proof. "The case of the prosecution was in tatters right from the very beginning and the investigating officer left no stone unturned to make a complete mess of it," the court said. "No evidence has come forth in regard to the manner in which the money was being collected through hawala channels for providing the unlawful conference facility. In an operation like this,how money exchanged hands has not been explained by the state (CBI)," it said. The trial court's order came two years after the Delhi High Court discharged prime accused Shiv Shankar Mishra,an MTNL meter reader in 2009 for lack of evidence. According to the CBI,south Delhi residents Mohd Shafiq,Mohd Irshad and Mohd Javed had hatched a criminal conspiracy in March-April 1998 with MTNL JTO Singh and Mishra to run telephone booths to make international calls with phones meant to make only local calls by tempering with their connections in telephone exchange.
