2G scam: What are the exact charges under section 409?

All the accused in the 2G spectrum case have been charged under section 409 of the Criminal Penal Code(CrPC) and section 120 B of the IPC . However all accused are not public servants and the majority are corporate executives. The 17 accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case are: A Raja, Siddharth Behura, RK Chandolia, Gautam Doshi, Surrendra Pipara, Hari Nair, Sanjay Chandra, Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Sharat Kumar, Kanimozhi, Rajiv Agarwal, Asif Balwa, Karim Morani, Reliance Telecommunication, Unitech Wireless Pvt Ltd (Tamil Nadu) and Swan Telecom.

Section 409, which is criminal conspiracy and means conviction of life sentence, has been upheld by the Special Court for 14 of the 17 accused. Section 409 has exclusively been charged on the public servants which includes the A Raja, former Telecom secretary, Siddharth Behura and Raja’s close aide RK Chandolia. Section 409 deals with criminal conspiracy and is meant for public servants.

However, the corporate executives have also been read with 409, which means they are seen as being part of the conspiracy but are not being seen as playing a substantive part in that conspiracy. The accused corporate executives have been charged under section 120 B of the Indian Penal Code, which is for criminal conspiracy and states the following:

" rigorous imprisonment for a term of two years or upwards, shall, where no express provision is made in this Code for the punishment of such a conspiracy, be punished in the same manner as if he had abetted such offence."

However, since all the accused have been charged with Section 120 B, they are all bound by whatever sentence is announced. But because Raja, Kanimozhi, Behura and Chandolia are public servants they could possibly face harsher sentences. The public servants are the ones actually accused of committing the concerned criminal act.

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