CBI concludes arguments on PC
The CBI on Thursday finally concluded its two-and-half-days’ laborious arguments opposing any order from the Supreme Court for investigating the alleged role of P. Chidamabaram in fixing spectrum prices at lower level as finance minister in UPA-I, along with then telecommunications minister A. Raja.
Though CBI counsel K.K. Venugopal was allowed 15 minutes to conclude his left over arguments starting on Tuesday by a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, but it stretched for more than an hour after court’s poser whether all the documents placed on record by complainant Subramanian Swamy for probe against Mr Chidambaram, were “accessed or sized” by the agency.
Evading any direct reply on the issue, the CBI counsel instead read out a lengthy statement of former finance secretary and present RBI governor D. Subbarao recorded by the agency in the process of its investigation.
Since Mr Subbarao had given complete details about how the 2G case was processed since 2006, Mr Venugopal wanted to convey that whatever documents Mr Swamy has produced — except the finance ministry’s March 25, 2011 note to the PMO place on record on Wednesday — were covered in his statement. Hence, the investigators were fully aware of all the details mentioned in those 15 documents.
Regarding the Wednesday’s query by the court about “no loss” theory of Trai in the sale of 2G spectrum, Mr Venugopal said “the regulator’s expert committee report corroborates what CBI had said in the chargesheet (about `30,000 crore loss). But Trai’s covering letter with the report said something different (that there was loss).”
CBI counsel on Wednesday had said that the agency had not “accepted” the Trai theory of “no loss” but admitted that the accused persons were trying to take “advantage” of it in trial court citing it as their defence.
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