With the corruption becoming a dominant issue, the CBI’s prosecution skills in the 2G scam will come under real test, especially in the backdrop of its “dismal” results in all major scam cases against politicians were put to trial in the past and they ultimately got scot-free.
The CBI had miserably failed in cases like Jain Hawala scam in which nearly 40 top leaders from across the political spectrum were chargesheeted. Similar was the fate of petrol pump scam, housing scam and the JMM MPs bribery scam case against 16 leaders in which only former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and his Cabinet colleague Buta Singh were convicted by the trial court but later acquitted by the Delhi high court. But the agency did not file any appeal against their acquittal in the Supreme Court.
The other exception for the CBI was the securing conviction of former communications minister Sukh Ram in a disproportionate assets case, which could be proved on the basis of recovery of assets worth `5 crores, including `2.65 crores cash from his premises while two case against him failed miserably at the trial court even after framing of the charges.
These included, favouring a telecom equipment company from Hyderbad and a cable supply company from Haryana by Mr Sukh Ram, which was the first telecom scam coming to light in 1996 after opening of the economy.
Similar was the fate of petrol pump case against former petroleum minister Satish Sharma as the CBI failed to gather sufficient evidence and ultimately filed “closure” report with special judge at Tis Hazari courts after a long drawn legal proceeding.
In the housing scam case against former Union urban development minister Sheela Kaul and her deputy P.K. Thungan, the CBI could not secure conviction even after framing of the charges.
In Jain Hawala case, considered the first major case of political corruption after the Bofors case, the CBI failed to bring substantive evidence to support its charges against nearly 40 politicians mainly from Congress, some from BJP, including L.K. Advani, Madan Lal Khurana and JDU’s Sharad Yadav and some 15 top bureaucrats.
The charges were struck down by the Delhi high court on the ground that the CBI had failed to bring on record supportive evidence to prove the payment of bribes by three Jain brothers to the politicians and bureaucrats whose names figured in their “two diaries” mentioning the payment of a total bribe of `56 crores. The `133-crore urea scam case is another example of the CBI’s slow-paced prosecution still lingering on at Tis Hazari court after 15 years of proceedings while the charges against some politicians were rejected by trial judge.