Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha member and daughter of DMK president M. Karunanidhi, moved the Delhi High Court on Monday for bail, challenging the rejection of her bail plea by a CBI special court trying the 2G spectrum scam cases.
In her appeal filed through advocates V.G. Pragasam and R. Shanmugasundaram, she denied the allegation of her strong association with the ‘2G scam co-accused' and former Communications Minister, A. Raja, saying it was false, baseless and malicious.
Refuting the CBI's charge that Kalaignar TV had received a bribe of Rs.200 crore, she said: “A mere loan, obtained from one company to another through bank and repaid by the borrowing company with interest and tax deduction, has been imaginarily portrayed as receipt of bribe on the basis of the belated and oral statements of obliging witnesses.”
The petition said: “She has 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… and the management of the offices and operations of the channel. The only role assigned to her is one of a shareholder, and it is a settled proposition of law that a shareholder cannot be made vicariously liable under criminal law.”
Questioning the legality of the special court's order, she said that by the issuance of the summons, she was made to believe that she would not be arrested and was thus precluded from moving an application for anticipatory bail. Under such circumstances, her arrest would amount to depriving her of a valuable right to apply for anticipatory bail.
She said she was entitled to merely furnishing bail bonds in terms of Section 87/88 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which she was ready and 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 her bail.
She said: “It is well settled that no court has any inherent power of remand of an accused to any custody. Such power has to be conferred by law and must be traced to some provision of the statute. The relevant provisions of the statute are Sections 167 of the Cr.PC and 309 of the Cr.PC. Remand during investigation is permissible under Section 167 (2) of the Cr.PC up to a prescribed maximum period. After the filing of the charge sheet or the challan [which signals the completion of investigation] and after cognisance is taken, remand of an accused to custody can only be under Section 309 (2) of the Cr.PC. Further, when the order of remand is passed, the accused must already be in custody.” In this case, she was not in custody, as she appeared in response to the summons issued by the court, and hence she could not be remanded to judicial custody.
Citing humanitarian grounds, she said she had to take care of a school-going child as her husband was employed abroad.
As for the apprehension about tampering with the evidence, she said: “The apprehension of the special judge is without any basis as the entire allegations are borne out of documentary evidence, and no question of tampering with the witnesses arises in the present case. Since the same have already been collected during investigation, there is absolutely no scope for the documentary evidence being tampered with.”
She sought the quashing of the special court's order and her release on bail.
