Supreme Court seeks CBI chief Ranjit Sinha's response on A Raja plea

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a reply from the CBI and its director Ranjit Sinha regarding A Raja's, former telecom minister and prime accused in the 2G allocation scam, plea that he be provided with copies of letters exchanged between the agency and UU Lalit, former special public prosecutor.

But the court turned down Raja's plea that the ongoing trial be stopped till it takes a call on the petition challenging the special court's order framing charges against him and other accused in the 2G scam. Raja cited dna's August 4 report, 'Is CBI trying to save Reliance in 2G case?' while making his request.

Recently, Sinha's been embroiled in a controversy before the apex court for meeting various people accused in the 2G, including Reliance officials, and coal block allocation scams at his 2 Janpath official residence here. Raja, it appears, is trying to take advantage of the row and use it to defend himself.

A bench, headed by justice HL Dattu, gave the CBI and Sinha two weeks to reply.

Anand Grover, special public prosecutor, told the court that the criminal trial in the 2G case is nearly complete and final arguments will commence sometime in November.

Accepting Grover's submission, the bench said "there is no need to stay the trial at this stage" and posted the matter for hearing on October 29.

dna, which accessed a letter written by Lalit, now a judge of the Supreme Court, reported that the CBI chief has found some new facts that contradict with the present charge sheet filed against three accused of Reliance Telecom, Shahid Balwa of Swan Telecom and DMK's Kanimozhi.

So, the CBI director proposed to suspend the ongoing trial against Reliance and reopen the case for further investigation.

Finding the allegations against Sinha "serious", the top court has taken all documents and file notings pertaining to the probe against Reliance Telecom in its custody. As reported by dna, Lalit opposed Sinha's view and said this proposal is "tantamount to weaken the ongoing 2G trial".

In his application, Raja cited the dna report and CBI chief's subsequent explanation and said on the plea of petitioner NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), the court on August 12 had taken the original file into its custody.

He referred to a CBI draft, as reported in the media and said "if the CBI is of the view that Clause 8 of UASL guidelines should apply only to a licensee and not to an applicant then the entire prosecution case of cheating is false.

Clause 8 of USAL guidelines says no single company either directly or indirectly or through its associates shall have substantial equity (10 per cent or more) holding in more than one licensee company in the same service area.

Raja said that the media reported in the Reliance case, the applicant was Swan Telecom's Shahid Balwa. And if clause 8 of USAL does not apply on Swan, the entire case against Balwa and Reliance falls apart.