Big question: Will Niira Radia testify in 2G scam case?

Niira Radia is “witness No 44” in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI’s) 2G charge-sheet. She is described as the daughter of Iqbal Narain Menon, chairperson of Vaishnavi Corporate Communications Pvt Ltd, and director of Noesis Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd.

With the 2G trial scheduled to begin on 11 November, what does her hastily announced exit from Vaishnavi-the public relations and lobbying business- over the weekend, mean for the trial? Is she going to turn hostile?

The 2G scam’s first charge-sheet has squarely implicated A Raja, Shahid Balwa of DB Realty, Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom and Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra. Niira Radia’s testimony is not central to it, but will add significant weight.

Radia, who is a person of Indian origin holding a British passport, is one of the 125 people the CBI is relying on to secure convictions in the scam. She has given a 19-page statement to the CBI detailing how Raja favoured Unitech and Swan Telecom when she was trying to promote the telecom interests of her client Tata. If she stands up in court and re-asserts the same, it will add to the CBI’s case.

Her testimony is important because it is the “Niira Radia tapes” which provided fuel to the 2G scam fire. Those tapes, which essentially include her conversations with top-notch industrialists, journalists and lobbyists, exposed the roles played by former Communications Ministers Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja to help their favourite businessmen win licences and spectrum.

The tapes, though, also put the spotlight on her, as she is seen lobbying hard to get a ‘favourable’ minister in the telecom ministry for her clients. Despite this embarrassment, CBI sources say that her role remains outside the purview of their criminal investigations. What she did may be unethical, but it was nothing criminal, the sources maintain.

Niira Radia has now publicly announced that she is winding up her business. Her client Tata has already appointed Rediffusion for the job. Many of Radia’s employees have been accommodated in Mukesh Ambani’s business empire. She has cited health and family reasons for shutting down the PR business. Does this mean that she is leaving India for Britain, even as the 2G scam trial begins in 11-days’ time?

The news, sources say, is that wherever she goes she is still likely to appear as ‘witness’ in the trial court, as and when the CBI requests her for it. She is not going to shy away from her 19-page submission and she has reportedly decided to deal with the dirt thrown at her by giving her statement in the court.

Radia’s 19-page statement has no ’evidentiary’ value as of today, because it was filed under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc). But it becomes credible if she appears as witness in court and endorses what she stated earlier. Her statement says it was a corporate conspiracy in which DB Realty Group (belonging to Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka) was involved.

Her statement, recorded on 25 January 2011, had also alleged that the general impression in Mumbai was that Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his family were behind the DB Realty Group. Sharad Pawar, however, has denied the allegations, while admitting that Vinod Goenka was known to his family.

For the CBI, Sharad Pawar’s links to DB Realty do not make him an accomplice in the crime. He doesn’t figure in the corporate conspiracy with A Raja, as detailed in the CBI’s first charge-sheet in the 2G scam. The CBI also foresees no reason for Niira Radia to turn hostile. The CBI neither forced her to give any statement, nor did the CBI exert any pressure on her to become a witness. She had willingly agreed to appear as witness in the light of the disclosure of her taped conversations, which had, at one point, become a larger controversy than the 2G scam itself, the CBI sources say.

Besides, there is moral pressure on her to echo what she stated in her 19-page statement.