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2G SCAM New Delhi, February 10 A Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly passed an order debarring any other court in the country from interfering with the CBI investigations in the scam, estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. “It is directed that no court shall pass any orders which may in any way impede the investigations being carried out by the CBI” under the direct supervision of the apex court, the Bench ruled. Senior counsel KK Venugopal, arguing for the CBI, assured the Bench that the investigation agency would file the chargesheet by March 31 after showing it to the court for its perusal. The CBI would submit the chargesheet to the Bench four days before it was filed in the trial court, he said. During today’s arguments that lasted nearly 100 minutes, the Bench asked the CBI as to what action it had taken against the conspirators who had benefited from the scam and the top TRAI officials whose decision in 2003 “triggered the entire episode”. The 2003 decision was in alleged violation of a Cabinet approval for a multi-stage bidding process for the allocation of 2G Spectrum. The Bench pointed out that the CBI itself had indicated in its status report on its investigations that this TRAI decision was taken just on the basis of a teleconference the then TRAI Chairman had with the Telecom Secretary. The decision pertained to sticking to the licence fee at Rs 1,600 crore. Referring to the beneficiaries of the conspiracy, the Bench said, “Some people feel they are law unto themselves. Law must catch them expeditiously. Merely because someone is on the Forbes list of millionaires does not make any difference.” Later, counsel Prashant Bhushan told the Bench that the CBI had failed to question Anil Ambani, CMD of Reliance Infocomm. The agency had merely questioned four top officials of the company in connection with the Reliance-owned Tiger Trustees Pvt Ltd, which had majority holding in Swan Telecom, selling Swan to another company just for Rs 5 crore despite the fact that the company was worth thousands of crores, including the 2G licence costing of Rs 1,600 crore. The decision to sell Swan could not have been taken by any one other than those at the very top, he contended.Without naming former Telecom Minister A Raja and his officials, the Bench asked the CBI as to why the agency was seeking short-duration remands for the accused already arrested. Venugopal said the CBI would seek a longer remand the next time when they were produced before the trial court. The Bench granted two weeks’ time for the CBI to disclose what it planned to do with the “beneficiaries of the conspiracy.” A similar time was given to Attorney General GE Vahanvati to consult the authorities concerned on the suggestion for setting up a special court for holding trial in the 2G case exclusively. The court also wanted to know whether the top CBI official handling the 2G case was burdened with any other case. After an instant inquiry, Venugopal informed the Bench that the official was also dealing the Commonwealth Games scam, triggering a loud laughter among those who had packed the courtroom. Nevertheless, the CBI director had given the official four additional hands today for the 2G investigation. At one stage, Venugopal wanted to know from the court as to what action the CBI was expected to take against the beneficiaries. “What action have you taken against some,” the Bench asked, to which the CBI counsel said, “We have arrested some.”
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