JOIN US2G scam: Court dismisses pleas of cos
A special CBI court has dismissed the petition of two accused companies who had challenged its jurisdiction to hear additional spectrum allocation case of 2002, stating that the matter was well within its purview. It also said that the court was constituted by the Supreme Court to try “all matters” relating to 2G spectrum scam.
Pronouncing its order on Thursday, the court of Special CBI Judge O P Saini also pulled up the petitioners, Hutchison Max Private Limited and Sterling Cellular Limited, who were chargesheeted in the case, for filing “frivolous applications” and slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 each on them as “cost for wasting the time of the court”.
The entire “repertoire of grounds” taken by the accused firms in their petitions
was nothing but an exercise in “taxonomical absurdity” aimed at wasting the time of the court by resorting to “narcissism of small things”, he observed.
‘Tortuous course’
“One has to wend through a mountain of documents by following a tangled and tortuous course, which virtually amounts to trawling an archive for disposing such frivolous
applications. Scrupulous attention was not paid to the complicated facts of the case while filing the applications,” he added.
The “gripe and grievance” of the petitioners regarding jurisdiction of the court is without merit as whatever may be the "colour classification, description or designation" of the 2002 additional spectrum case, as long as it stems from the CAG report and the orders of the Supreme Court, it is within the sweep of the jurisdiction of this court, the Special CBI judge held.
“For these reasons, the applications not only deserve to be dismissed with exemplary cost, the same being devoid of any merit whatsoever. However, since ordinarily every party has a right to challenge or contest jurisdiction of the court as it goes in the root of the matter, I am inclined to take a lenient view regarding cost,” he noted while imposing a fine of Rs 25,000 each on the two companies.
A special CBI court had on Monday deferred pronouncement of its order in the matter for the second time, saying the order was not yet ready because of the “complex and complicated” nature of the case.
The two accused firms had filed separate petitions in the special CBI court in February, challenging its jurisdiction to hear the case, primarily claiming that the case was not part of the 2G spectrum allocation case.