Not only the prosecution, the special court has also indicted the CBI for unwarranted delay in examination of witnesses in the name of high-profile nature of the case in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
The court also questioned the fairness of investigation into the case stating that the unwarranted delay in the examination of witnesses has “put a cloud about fairness of investigation”.
Hype around case
“This unwarranted delay in the examination of important witnesses coupled with the type of hype around the case indicates that the witnesses may be under pressure or were even coerced to toe the prosecution line. No plausible explanation has been given for the delay except citing the high profile nature of the case,” special judge O.P. Saini said. “This puts a cloud about fairness of investigation,” Mr. Saini added in his judgment acquitting all the accused persons.
“I may add that there was no expeditious investigation in this case. On registration of the case, for more than a year, almost nothing was done in the case and then suddenly all the witnesses were recorded one after the another as if the investigators had all of a sudden gained all the knowledge of the case and the witnesses had also become source of all the information,” the judge observed.
“The case was registered on 21.10.2009. PW 60 A.K. Srivastava, DDG (AS), is the most important witness. However, his first statement was recorded by the CBI on 29.11.2010, that is, more than one year after registration of the case,” the judgment said.
“The then Director (AS-I) PW 110 Nitin Jain, who was responsible for the licensing branch, was examined by the CBI for the first time on 07.10.2010. It is thus clear that three most important functionaries of the DoT were examined by the CBI at a highly belated stage,” Mr. Saini said
“The most important witness of the case is PW 7 Aseervatham Achary. He was Additional PS to A. Raja for a long time. It is this witness who deposed about the association between A. Raja and Shahid Balwa & Vinod Goenka and Sanjay Chandra. Furthermore, this is the witness who deposed about the association between A. Raja and Kanimozhi. However, the CBI deemed it proper to examine him at a very belated stage, that is, on 24.03.2011, that is, only a week before filing of charge sheet,” the judge said.
