2G: Raja acquittal challenged

New Delhi: The CBI on Monday filed an appeal in the Delhi high court against the acquittal of former communications minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and others in the 2G spectrum case.

Earlier on Monday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) also moved the Delhi high court against the acquittal of A. Raja and others in the 2G spectrum case. A special CBI court had last year acquitted all key accused, including A. Raja, in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

Special CBI judge O.P. Saini had cleared the 16 accused of all charges, rejecting the case presented by the agency, citing lack of “prosecutable evidence”. Immediately after the trial court order, the CBI had announced that “it prima facie examined the order and it appears that the evidence adduced to substantiate the charges by the prosecution has not been appreciated in its proper perspective by the trial court”.

The other accused allowed to walk free included former communications secretary Siddharth Behura, Mr Raja’s erstwhile private secretary R.K. Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG). The CBI had alleged that there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of licences for the 2G spectrum which were scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 2, 2012. Mr Raja and Ms Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi, were also let off in the case lodged by the ED under the money laundering law arising out of the 2G scam.

In its chargesheet, the ED had also named DMK supremo M. Karuna-nidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal as an accused in the case in which it had alleged that Rs 200 crore was paid by Swan Telecom (P) Ltd (STPL) promoters to DMK-run Kalaignar TV.