Kanimozhi and MD of Kalaignar TV will go to jail

Kanimozhi, daughter of former DMK Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, will go to jail. This follows a decision of the Special Judge hearing her case in the 2G (second generation) telecom spectrum case to reject her bail plea. Sharad Kumar, Managing Director of Kalignar TV, also saw his bail plea rejected. Kalaignar TV was allegedly the conduit for receiving bribes of Rs 214 crore from a telecom company that was favoured by former Communications Minister A Raja. Raja is already in jail. [caption id=“attachment_13061” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“DMK MP Kanimozhi can appeal for bail only in the Delhi High Court. PTI”]  [/caption] Raja and Kanimozhi were close party colleagues, and the latter is alleged to have lobbied to get Raja into the ministry after the 2009 election. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar as co-conspirators in the case in its second charge-sheet. With Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar going to jail, the number of people in custody goes up to 11. Apart from Raja, who quit as Communications Minister after the scam broke last year, his aide RK Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, and Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa  are also in jail. Others in jail are Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech Wireless and Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara (all from Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group). The decision to refuse bail follows two earlier postponements in the case – one on May 6 and another on May 14 - when the judge deferred his order. The Tamil Nadu election that intervened saw the DMK bow out of power. It was rejected outright by the electorate partly because of its close links with the 2G scam, where spectrum was gifted away to favoured companies at throwaway prices – apparently for a consideration. The Comptroller and Auditor General estimated the loss to the exchequer at over Rs 1,76,000 crore due to the underpricing of spectrum. A Joint Parliamentary Committee is probing the scam. Kanimozhi, represented by veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani, had sought bail on the plea that she was a silent partner in Kalaignar TV, and also a mother who needed special consideration. But even if Kanimozhi was not the active owner, her mother certainly was. The CBI did not charge-sheet the majority owner of Kalaignar TV – Kanimozhi’s mother Dayalu Ammal – on the (unstated) assumption that she had no clue about the running of the company, since she was not a business person. The CBI’s arguments in Dayalu Ammal’s case and Kanimozhi’s defence were not credible. At least one of them had to be misleading, because between them they represented 80% of the shareholding.  Both Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar said the money routed to Kalaignar TV was not a payoff. They claimed it was a loan that was to become equity, but the deal didn’t go through for various reasons.