A lawyers’ strike in Delhi on Monday may have saved DMK MP Kanimozhi and former Telecom Minister A. Raja and Dayalu Ammal, wife of DMK president M. Karunanidhi from recording their statements in a money laundering case linked to the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
The lawyers pleaded that they could not appear before the court for this reason as well as asked for more time to file their replies to the 400 questions that were put forth to them.
Special CBI Judge O.P Saini agreed for August 3 to be the next date of hearing.
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Both Mr. Raja and Ms. Kanimozhi, who are out on bail from an earlier case of the 2G spectrum allocation scam, stand accused of several criminal offences under the IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
In this case, a charge sheet, filed by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in April 2014, said Raja, in collusion with Kanimozhi, Dayalu Ammal and other accused, parked Rs. 200 crore in illegal gratification in Kalaignar TV.
Earlier this month, the court handed over a 400-page questionnaire to the lawyers of the accused. It said that if the accused did not understand any of the questions, they were free to seek clarifications and that it would help to make the recording of statements easy since the case records were very technical and huge.
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Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka are among the other accused.