Raja custody extended
A Delhi court on Tuesday allowed the plea of the CBI to keep former telecom minister A. Raja in its custody for two more days, after the probe agency said that the “evasive” leader has to be confronted with documents and some officials of DoT to ascertain his role in the 2G spectrum scam.
Seeking another four days’ CBI custody of the 47-year-old DMK leader Raja to question him in the 2G spectrum scam, CBI prosecutors — K.K. Goel and Akhilesh — argued that “he (Raja) was evasive in his replies and some more documents have to be recovered at his instance.” The CBI submitted before the court that Mr Raja was the prime accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam and his questioning for another four days’ was indeed required to unearth the scam.
While allowing the plea of the CBI to quiz Mr Raja for another two days,’ special CBI judge O.P. Saini, said, “Naturally, it is a complex case based on documents and at the relevant time accused A. Raja was the minister in charge of the department. Accordingly, considering the submissions of the parties and material on record, Raja is remanded to the police custody till February 10.” The court also sent Mr Raja’s two aides — former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura and Mr Raja’s former personal secretary R.K. Chandolia — to 14 days’ judicial custody. Opposing the plea of the CBI, Mr Raja’s advocate said the criminal conspiracy should have been unearthed and the investigation report submitted to the court after five days’ custody.
Mr Gupta said, “In the CBI application, I do not find any such report on which the CBI should get any further custody of my client A. Raja. In five days, the CBI has only confronted Raja with two of his aides. Therefore, no further custody should be granted as the Supreme Court is also monitoring this case”.
Mr Gupta said the CBI should be allowed to keep Raja only if there was specific information or document to confront him with.
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