The special court hearing the 2G spectrum scam case on Thursday allowed Subramanian Swamy's application to summon witnesses to substantiate his case that the former Telecom Minister, A. Raja, and the then Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, “acted in collusion,” but on condition that he first examine himself as witness on December 17 to lead further evidence and explain how the testimony of other witnesses he wished to be summoned would be relevant to his case.
The complainant “is permitted to recall himself as CW1 (Court Witness 1) for leading further evidence. However, other witnesses as mentioned in the ‘list of witnesses' will be allowed to be summoned only after the relevance of their testimony is explained by the complainant,” Special Judge O. P. Saini said in his order.
He was disposing of Dr. Swamy's application moved under Section 311 of the Criminal Procedure Code on September 15 for summoning witnesses and recalling himself as a witness to depose further, in light of new evidence which, he claimed, had come into his possession.
Mr. Saini said: “In view of the fact that the complainant was not aware of the identity of [the] additional proposed accused at the time of filing of [his] complaint, but has now come to know about it, he is not prevented in law from leading evidence on this point, more so, when he has referred to the role of other conspirators in his complaint. Furthermore, the case is still at the initial stage. Only the complainant has examined himself as CW1. If such a prayer is made at an early stage, I see no reason for disallowing the same.”
Arguing his case on December 3, Dr. Swamy alleged that Mr. Raja and Mr. Chidambaram had “jointly decided” to dole out Unified Access Service licences in 2008 at 2001 prices and allowed the dilution of equity by Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless, which had been granted UAS licences.
Among the witnesses Dr. Swamy wants summoned are a Joint Director in the CBI and a former Finance Ministry official.
