A special 2G court on Thursday discharged all accused in the 2G spectrum scam. The special court snubbed CBI saying that the chargesheet filed by them was ‘false and fabricated’.
Special CBI Judge OP Saini observed that the premier investigating agency tried to mislead the court and that its chargesheet was full of ‘distorted facts’.
The court asked the CBI director to conduct an inquiry against the ‘erring officials’ for filing such a chargesheet in the case.
Former telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms — Hutchison Max(P) Ltd, Sterling Cellular Ltd and Bharti Cellular Ltd — were chargesheeted in the case relating to Department of Telecommunications (DoT) allocating additional spectrum that had allegedly led to a loss of Rs 846.44 crore to the exchequer.
In its charge sheet, CBI had alleged that Ghosh had deliberately not obtained comments of then Member of DoT on the issue despite the matter involving huge ‘financial implications’.
All the accused were chargesheeted for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy (section 120-B) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court had on August 31 reserved orders after hearing arguments on framing of charges as well as Ghosh’s bail plea.
CBI had earlier argued that Ghosh had given additional spectrum to the telecom companies at “throwaway prices” causing a huge loss to the exchequer.
Ghosh had countered CBI’s arguments saying private firms were not the only beneficiaries of surplus radio waves, but state-run MTNL and BSNL had also benefitted.
He had claimed that it cannot be said allocation was done primarily to benefit private companies and asserted that he had not abused his official position in any manner.
(With inputs from Agencies)