2G Scam: Blame game emerges between five co-accused for bail

New Delhi: As anticipated, a serious blame game has emerged between the five corporate executives – Sanjay Chandra of Unitech, Vinod Goenka of DB Realty and three top officials of Reliance ADAG group – for obtaining relief from the Delhi high court. During a hearing in Delhi High Court today, seniour advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for ADAG official Surendra Pipara vehemently tried to drive home the point that the charges against his client and other ADAG officials can not be dubbed as serious as that are against 2 other co-accused Vinod Goenka of DB Realty and Sanjay Chandra of Unitech or that are leveled against main accused A. Raja.

CBI has accused Sanjay Chandra and Vinod Goenka for conspiring together with former telecom minister A. Raja and other DoT officials to cheat the department of telecom and accused Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair for intentionally and deliberately structuring and funding a company – Swan – that was ineligible for a telecom license as per the clause 8 of license conditions and concealing this information from DoT and willingly and knowingly transferring the company to Balwa and Goenka.

Neeraj Kishan Kaul argued that even the CBI charge sheet did not allege that his client had anything to do with manipulations in the cut off date and violation of the first come first served policy and grant of license to ineligible companies. He said, “It is clear from the CBI charge sheet that there are four main allegations – making arbitrary changes in the cut off date from October 01, 2007  to September 25, 2007;  violation of time tested the first come first served policy by changing the basis for determining the seniority – from the date of application to the time and date of fulfilling the conditions mentioned in the Letters of Intent;  grant of licenses to ineligible companies;  and structuring and funding a company – Swan – to get the license.”

He said, even as per the CBI charge sheet his client or other ADAG officials had nothing to do with changes made in the cut off date at the behest of A. Raja or violation of the first come first served policy. He said, his client or other ADAG officials can only be accused of a ‘mini conspiracy’ of structuring Swan and not for the ‘larger conspiracy’ of manipulating the FCFS policy and changes made the in cut off date.

The CBI had accused the three ADAG officials for intentionally concealing the ownership structure of Swan from DoT.

Seniour Advocate Rajiv Nayyar and Neeraj Kishan Kaul both appearing for ADAG officials, tried to downplay the observation of the special judge OP Saini who had declined the bail to the five corporate executives citing the ‘grave magnitude’ of the crime.

They said the company was sold off by the Reliance ADAG to Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka and the conspiracy to manipulate the FCFS policy and cut off date began at a later date as shown by the CBI. They alleged that this was a larger conspiracy not the structuring and funding of Swan which was incorporated in March 2006.

Perhaps this is the second time, when defence lawyers appearing for the accused had sought to distance their clients from other co-accused in the case to secure relief for their individual clients even if it required raising finger at others.

Earlier, during the last hearing held on Monday (May 02), seniour advocate Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Sanjay Chandra of Unitech had tried to distinguish the role of his client and that of Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa by saying that “unlike others (Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka) there was nothing on record to prove that Sanjay Chandra paid any money to A. Raja or his associates in return of the alleged favour shown by the former telecom minister.”

He asked, “Where is the money trail unlike others? Did I pay a single rupee in return of the alleged favour?”

Jethmalani sought to differentiate the accusations against Sanjay Chandra and promoters of DB Realty – Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka on the basis of the supplementary charge sheet filed by the CBI that accused A. Raja, MK Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar for receiving the bribe from Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka in form of business loans.

In the supplementary charge sheet, the CBI has alleged that Balwa and Goenka paid Rs. 200 crore in  bribe to A. Raja, Kanimozhi and others through three companies – Dynamix Realty, Kusegaon Fruit and Vegetables and Cineyug Films,  funds finally reaching to Kalaignar TV.  CBI had said, “The bribe money was paid in form of loans from DB Realty group companies to Kalaignar TV, a channel controlled by DMK leaders.”

Ram Jethmalani had submitted to the court that any such evidence of returning the favour has not been mentioned by the CBI against his client – Sanjay Chandra.

In the similar manner, Neeraj Kishan Kaul also tried to distance his client and other ADAG officials from other two co-accused – Shahid Balwa and Sanjay Chandra by saying, “My client was taken into the custody because we were summoned on the same day with others.”

He argued that his client is a ‘mere manager’ and not the promoter or share holder of the company and can not influence the witnesses in the case.

Earlier, the counsels, appearing for all the five co-accused – Sanjay Chadra, Vinod Goenka, Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair – namely used to base their pleas on the fact that their clients had cooperated with the CBI in the 18 month long investigation and the CBI did not subject them to custodial interrogation and their appearance before the trial court can be ensured by summons only. All of them invariably argued that the ‘presumption of innocence’ was in favour of their clients.

However, as the 2G bail hearing progressed in the court of Justice Ajit Bharihoke in the Delhi High Court, this common defence seemed to have fallen apart and now the defence counsels have been dwelling deeper in the merits of the charges and evidences against individual accused to secure his bail and pointing fingers at each other.

Justice Ajit Bharihoke has posted the matter for further hearing on Friday (May 06), when seniour advocate Mukual Rohtagi is slated to again argue on behalf of Vinod Goenka and after that the special public prosecutor UU Lalit will respond collectively to the arguments of the defence lawyers. On the same day, DMK MP Kanimozhi, CEO of Kalaignar TV Sharad Kumar and Karim Morani of Cineyug Films are slated to appear before the special trial court for the first time in the case.