Another judge cries off, SC to hear Mittal, Ruia pleas on 29 April

The Surpeme Court today put off by another week hearing in thegraft case related to allocation of additional 2G spectrum in 2002 before the trial court.

The apex court will now hear the pleas of Bharti’s CMD Sunil Mittal and Essar Group’s Ravi Ruia challenging the summons issued to them as accused in the case on 29 April as Justice Dave too has recused himself from the summons quashing bench.

A R Dave is the second judge to have rescued himself from the hearing bench.

Last week Justice Vikramjit Sen had withdrawn from the case after which the apex court had deferred the hearing to today.

Interestingly, on April 8, Justice Dave had recused himself from hearing the 3G dispute between Airtel, DoT and Reliance Communications.

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The chief justice of India will now constitute a new bench to hear the quashing pleas of both Ruia and Mittal.

Sunil Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia on Tuesday appeared in a Delhi court in connection with the additional 2G spectrum allocation case and furnished personal bonds in pursuance of the Supreme Court’s direction.

Both the accused placed on record the apex court’s order and submitted separate personal bonds.

he bench headed by justice Singhvi had ordered the CBI probe into the allocation of 2G spectrum during the regime of A Raja as telecom minister and additional spectrum issued in 2002 during the NDA regime when late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister.

The apex court on April 8 had postponed the hearing till April 16 against Mittal and the same relief was granted to Ruia on April 10.

The CBI had told the apex court that investigation into the case has “found evidence against the CMD” (Mittal).

It had also told the bench that court has power under section 319 of the CrPC to proceed against other persons, not named as accused in the charge sheet.

CBI had said that in the case in hand, the probe by the “investigating officer had found evidence against the CMD”.

While summoning Mittal, Asim Ghosh, then MD of Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd and Ruia, then a Director in Sterling Cellular Ltd, the special CBI court had said that they were “prima facie” in “control of affairs” of their companies, named in the charge sheet by CBI in the case.

The trial court had also summoned Ruia and Ghosh, whose names were not mentioned in the charge sheet.

Mittal had approached the apex court contending that criminal liability cannot be fastened on an individual for alleged acts of a firm.

CBI had filed the charge sheet on December 21 last year against former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms – Bharti Cellular Ltd, Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd (now known as Vodafone India Ltd) and Sterling Cellular Ltd (now known as Vodafone Mobile Service Ltd). They all were also summoned for April 11 by the court.

The CBI, in its charge sheet, has named the three telecom companies as accused in the case in which the Department of Telecommunications had allocated additional spectrum which had allegedly resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.

With PTI inuts