Former communications minister A. Raja, his private secretary R.K. Chandolia and ex-telecom secretary Siddharth Behura were named as “key accused” by CBI in 2G scam for allegedly allowing the massive scam to happen despite being given constitutional responsibility as public servants to protect the scarce national resources from being “plundered”. In this background bail to them was not coming easily.
Mr Raja had not applied for bail even once after his arrest on February 2, 2011, while Mr Behura’s petitions were rejected by the trial judge as well as the Delhi high court earlier in at least two rounds of his attempts to get out of jail.
CBI had even moved the Supreme Court for cancelling Mr Chandolia’s bail and a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi while granting bail to Mr Behura on Wednesday declined to interfere in the trial court’s order allowing his release earlier.
The bench directed Mr Behura to furnish a bail bond of `10 lakh and a sureity of `5 lakh before special judge O.P. Saini to his “satisfaction”. The bail was mainly granted on the ground that substantial progress has since been made in the trial proceedings and “substantial part” of evidence recorded, there was no chance of his “tampering” with the evidence now.
The top court said Mr Behura had been a high ranking public servant and it was expected of him that he would not make any attempt to “abscond” from justice and co-operate with the trial judge and the prosecution in conduct of the trial. However, he would have to surrender his passport to the trial court, if not done earlier.
Meanwhile, Mr Raja in his bail petition claimed “innocence”.
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Bail news b’day gift for raja
RIDHIMA MALHOTRA
NEW DELHI, MAY 9
For A. Raja, who applied for bail on Wednesday for the first time since his arrest over fifteen months ago, the news of his aide Siddharth Behura being given bail by the Supreme Court was nothing short of a birthday gift as the former telecom minister turns 49 on Thursday.
According to Mr Raja’s lawyers, they had been “eagerly” waiting for the Supreme Court to grant bail to Mr Behura, former telecom secretary, before moving court with the erstwhile minister’s bail plea.