A Delhi court on Saturday rejected the objections of the accused and allowed CBI to place on record some additional documents and statements of witnesses, including some transcripts of conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others, relating to 2G spectrum allocation scam.
The court said allowing CBI's plea would not cause "prejudice" to the accused as the progress of the case before it was at an initial stage.
"In view of the law and facts quoted above (in the order), it is clear that the prosecution may file additional documents and list of witnesses, subsequent to the filing of the charge sheets, if they are considered relevant by it, more so when the case is still at an initial stage and no prejudice is being caused to the accused.
"The applications filed by CBI are squarely covered by the law and, as such, deserve to be allowed and the same are accordingly allowed. The documents are ordered to be taken on record," special CBI judge O.P. Saini said.
The CBI had filed four applications in April and July for filing some additional documents and statements of witnesses.
The agency had also sought the court's permission to take these documents on record.
CBI's move to file the additional documents was opposed by most of the accused in the case who had argued that these documents were collected during investigation itself and they could have been filed with the charge sheets.
CBI prosecutor A.K. Singh had countered the submissions of the accused saying when the prosecution could conduct further probe, it could also file additional list of witnesses and documents, if it deemed it necessary.
The accused had contended if these documents were filed with the charge sheets earlier, then the court might not have taken cognizance in the case.
The court rejected the contentions of the accused saying “these submissions are also contrary to law as merely non-filing of certain documents by the prosecution along with the charge sheet does not make a charge sheet to be an incomplete document if it contains sufficient material for the court to proceed further.”
The agency had also sought to rely on an additional statement of Radia recorded by it on May 12 after filing of the first two charge sheets in the case.
It also sought the court’s permission to submit a total of 28 additional documents and a list of 11 witnesses in support of its charge sheets filed on April 2 and April 25, 2011.
“It is prayed that the additional documents and the witnesses are relevant to the charge sheet and are relied upon by the prosecution and the same may be taken on record in the interest of justice,” the CBI had said.
CBI has added 11 more prosecution witnesses to bolster its case against the high-profile accused, including former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi, in the scam.
The probe agency had filed 654 documents and a list of 125 witnesses with the first charge sheet while 135 documents and a list of 28 witnesses were filed along with the supplementary charge sheet.
