2G scam: Former bureaucrat's bail plea rejected

Jun 03, 2011 |

IANS

New Delhi

Tags:

2g -BI officials carry a box to a court in New Delhi containing documents related to the 2G spectrum case - Reuters_16.jpg.crop_display.jpg

A special court on Friday dismissed the bail plea of former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, who is in jail in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

CBI special Judge O.P. Saini said: "The application stands dismissed."

Behura is a co-accused in the scam along with former communication minister A. Raja, who is also in prison.

Pleading for bail, counsel Aman Lekhi said that Behura being the secretary of the Department of Telecommunication (DOT) at that time, had only implemented the policy which was finalised by the cabinet.

"Therefore, why should he be made an accused in the case as he has only performed his duty? He should be released as he is just a small cog in the wheel," Lekhi argued before the judge.

The CBI prosecutor said that after Behura joined the department Jan 1, 2008, he started following a policy that was non-existent till then.

The CBI's first chargesheet April 2 had named Raja, Behura, Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, Raja's aide R.K. Chandolia, Swan Telecom's Vinod Goenka, Unitech Wireless's Sanjay Chandra and three executives of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group - Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.

In its April 25 supplementary chargesheet, the CBI named DMK MP Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV chief Sharad Kumar as co-conspirators after it traced an illegal money trail of Rs.214 crore in the scam.

The supplementary chargesheet also named Cineyug Films founder Karim Morani, Asif Balwa and Rajiv B. Aggarwal of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd.

The scam relates to alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum to telecom firms, causing huge losses to the national exchequer.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/77497" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-62a51eaa5a08afcbd806668f36ad2e65" value="form-62a51eaa5a08afcbd806668f36ad2e65" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86766962" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>