The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the CBI on the bail petitions of DMK MP Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV director Sharad Kumar, who are in custody in the 2G spectrum allocation case. It also posted the matter for further hearing to May 30.
Justice Ajit Bharihoke issued the notice, after briefly hearing senior counsel R. Shanmugasundaram and counsel V.G. Pragasam, appearing for Ms. Kanimozhi, and senior counsel Altaf Ahmed for Mr. Kumar. The judge asked the CBI to file a status report, detailing the stage of the investigation, the role of the two accused and the judicial proceedings in the case at the next hearing.
In her appeal filed on Monday against the CBI Special Court's order dated May 20, she said she had “no role in the alleged conspiracy in the allocation of the Unified Access Services (UAS) licences, the valuable and scarce spectrum in various telecom circles and other undue favours to M/s. Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. [A-6] during 2007-2009. She is only a 20 per cent shareholder of Kalaignar TV and has no active role in its operations, management of offices and operations of the channel.”
Ms. Kanimozhi said she was entitled to merely furnishing bail bonds in terms of Section 87/88 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which she was willing to do. Once the judge applied his mind to the materials available before the court on April 25, took cognisance of the case and decided to issue only summons, the next step (for him) was to proceed as per Section 309 (2) of Cr.PC by accepting bail bonds from the accused and grant bail. “It is well settled that no court has any inherent power of remand of an accused to any custody.”
