Statements of six recorded in 2G scam

A special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday recorded statements of six more accused, including Dayalu Ammal, wife of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, in the money laundering case related to 2G spectrum allocation scam.

P Amirtham, son of elder sister of Karunanidhi, Bollywood film producer Karim Morani, Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB Telecom),  Cineyug Films and Kalaignar TV were others whose statements were recorded by the court under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Since the DMK patriarch’s wife was exempt from personal appearance on account of her “advanced age and age-related sickness”, her counsel Shunmugasundaram pleaded with the court to record her statement through Sudarshan Rajan, a lawyer.

Under Section 313 of the CrPC, while an accused gets an opportunity to tell his or her side of story, the court also questions them before fixing a date for final arguments. In this case, the court had supplied as many as 400 questions to each of the accused earlier this month.

The accused submitted their response through pen drive, which was minutely examined by the court and placed on record in the presence of the accused and the lawyers of those exempt from personal appearance. Each of the six accused, who submitted their response to the court’s questionnaire, were also asked to sign the hard copy of their reply in court.

The court on Monday allowed the accused to use “any electronic gadget or physically refer to any document” to submit their reply to the questionnaire in view of the “voluminous and technical nature” of the case. The concession was granted when former telecom minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, and managing director of Kalaignar TV Sharad Kumar turned up to submit their reply to the court. The accused wanted to use pen drives for furnishing replies to the questions.

The Special CBI Judge O P Saini, who is hearing all the cases related to the 2G spectrum allocation scam, will continue to record statements of the remaining accused on Thursday.