Etisalat DB promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka were fined Rs.15, 000 each by the special court hearing the 2G spectrum allocation case on Friday for wasting the court's time through frivolous applications, after their pleas for permission to travel to Mumbai for two days in June to attend to business matters was rejected.
Mr. Balwa and Mr. Goenka had petitioned the court — which adjourned for vacation till July 4 — that they be allowed to attend the extraordinary general meeting of Etisalat DB scheduled for June 15. They also submitted that they had been summoned by the Income Tax Department in Mumbai to appear before it on June 20.
“The applications are not only without merit but have also been filed with a view to wasting the valuable time of the court, and as such deserve to be dismissed with heavy cost,” Special Judge O.P. Saini said. But he was lenient with regard to the cost “in the hope that the accused shall improve in future and desist from filing such frivolous applications.”
The court agreed with the CBI's opposition to their pleas that their attendance at the meeting was not necessary, and that the Income Tax authorities could follow the lead of other agencies like the Enforcement Directorate which had examined the accused persons at the Tihar Central Jail itself. The CBI also warned that if the applications of the duo were allowed, “a floodgate for similar applications would be opened, and that would hamper the trial.”
Mr. Balwa and Mr. Goenka submitted that they were willing to bear their travel expenses and those of the police escort/guards. To this, the court said: “The state machinery cannot be made subservient to the money power of accused persons to serve their business interest as attending an EGM or appearing before the Income Tax authorities...and any such step of allowing the accused to foot the bill of the state machinery for facilitating their travel outside the jurisdiction of this court for their business purpose would bring disrepute and public ridicule to the public administration and the court…”
The families, including spouses, of the accused persons and a large number of DMK workers were present on Friday, when the court broke up for vacation. The day-to-day proceedings, which began on April 13, made it convenient for the accused and their families to meet in the court daily.
As the accused were taken to the lock-up in the afternoon, several family members broke down. However, the former Union Telecom Minister, A. Raja, was in a cheerful mood, pepping up everyone's spirits with jokes and encouraging words.
