Bail plea of ex-telecom secretary rejected
A Delhi court on Friday dismissed bail plea of former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura in the 2G spectrum allocation case in view of the apprehension that witnesses may be influenced during the trial.
Special Judge O P Saini took into consideration several factors including nature and enormity of the allegation against the retired IAS officer to reject his application as without merit.
Behura was arrested on February two and is facing charges for various offences under the Indian Penal Code including those relating to forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy, besides the offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“I may add that all the material witnesses were at one time subordinates of the accused and the possibility of they being influenced by the accused cannot be ruled out.
“Such possibility is more real in cases where there is or was a relationship of superior and subordinate between the accused and the witnesses and the case is of grave magnitude, like the instant case, which involves financial loss to the state exchequer to the tune of about Rs 30,000 crore. Such possibility is not remote, far fetched or imaginary,” Saini said.
In his bail plea, Behura said that he was merely following the policy backed by the prime minister and the orders given by then telecom minister A Raja, who was given a second stint in Sanchar Bhawan by the prime minister in 2009, one year after the government expressed its interest in allocating spectrum on first-come-first-served basis and issued formal Letters of Intent (LoI) for it.
