Special 2G court to hear additional spectrum case tomorrow

A special 2G court on Wednesday fixed February 6 to hear the 2002 additional spectrum allocation scam case in which the CBI had charge sheeted former telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini fixed the case for Friday after the defence counsel told the court that they needed some documents from the CBI which were filed along with the charge sheet.

The court asked the CBI to provide the documents as sought by the counsel. The agency has already supplied the copies of charge sheet and documents filed along with it to the accused.

The court was earlier informed that the Supreme Court has quashed the order summoning Bharti Cellular Ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the case.

Hearing in the case was virtually stalled since the April 26, 2013, interim order of the apex court which had said that proceedings against Mittal and Ruia, who had challenged the trial court’s summoning order, will remain “postponed” until further orders.

Besides Mittal, Ruia and Ghosh, the special court had also summoned Canada-based NRI Asim Ghosh, who was then a managing director of accused firm Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd (now known as Vodafone India Ltd), as accused. Mittal, Ruia and Asim were not named as accused in the CBI charge sheet.

The CBI had filed the charge sheet in the case on December 21, 2012, against Ghosh and three telecom firms — Bharti Cellular Ltd, Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd and Sterling Cellular Ltd (now known as Vodafone Mobile Service Ltd).

The agency had charge sheeted them as accused in the case relating to the Department of Telecommunications allocating additional spectrum which had allegedly resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.

In the 57-page charge sheet, the CBI has booked Ghosh and the three firms for criminal conspiracy (120-B) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.