Former Telecom Minister A Raja had declined to undergo lie detector test, a CBI official who was part of the team probing the 2G spectrum case told a Delhi court on Wednesday.
CBI’s Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajesh Chahal told this to the court when he was shown a memo of February 9, 2011 by the prosecutor during the recording of his statement as a prosecution witness.
“I have also been shown memo dated February 9, 2011 prepared by me. It bears my signature at point A and the same is now...This memo was prepared by me for obtaining consent of accused A Raja for lie detector test, which he declined.
“This memo bears the signature of A Raja at point B, who put this signature before me,” Mr. Chahal told Special CBI Judge O P Saini.
Mr. Raja, who is facing trial in the case, was arrested by the CBI on February 2, 2011 and he remained in CBI’s custody till February 17, 2011. He was granted bail by the court on May 15 last year.
Mr. Chahal, who is the first investigating officer (IO) to be examined as a witness, told the court that he was directed to assist Vivek Priyadarshi, the main IO, in the investigation of the case from October 2010 onwards.
“As per the directions of Vivek Priyadarshi from time to time, I examined and recorded statements of witnesses and collected documents through seizure memos and sometime through covering letters,” Mr. Chahal, whose recording of statement would continue tomorrow, said.
Mr. Chahal told the court that during the investigation in the case, he had seized some documents from Swan Telecom Promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, an accused facing trial in the case.
On being shown a March 28, 2011 letter, Mr. Chahal said it was written by a Department of Telecommunication (DoT) official and through this, he had received the certified true copies of all new Unified Access Service licences signed in 2008 and original applications by the firms who were granted licences that year.
He was also shown various documents during the recording of his statement.
Mr. Raja, along with others, including DMK MP Kanimozhi is facing trial in the case.
Besides Mr. Raja and Ms. Kanimozhi, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Mr. Raja’s erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra, three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) - Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair - are facing trial in the case.
Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV Director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also accused in the case.
Three telecom companies - Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd (STPL), Reliance Telecom Ltd and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd - are also facing trial in the case. They have been arrayed as accused in the first two charge sheets filed by CBI on April 2 and April 25, 2011 respectively.
