Plea to declare witness hostile rejected

A Delhi court, hearing the 2G spectrum allocation case, on Monday rejected a CBI plea to declare a prosecution witness hostile as he allegedly resiled from one of his statements given to the agency during investigation.

The agency alleged Vardharajan Srinivasan, a former Reliance Communication Ltd official, did not stand by his earlier statement that Hari Nair, a 2G case accused, had instructed him and one of his superiors to submit an account opening form of Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd to HDFC Bank.

Srinivasan, however, is now claiming he never met or spoke to Hari Nair, the agency said. "At one place in your examination-in-chief, you have stated that a letter was signed by us, that is, Anand Subramanium and yourself, on the instruction of Hari Nair and in the cross examination for Hari Nair, you have stated that you never met with and spoke to Nair before signing the letter," the prosecutor asked the witness.

Reliance ADA Group senior vice president Hari Nair, along with two other top officials of the group, Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara, is facing trial for their alleged roles in the 2G spectrum allocation case. They, however, have denied all the charges levelled against them.

Srinivasan, now working as HDFC Bank's Assistant vice president (trade and finance) and is based in Mumbai, however, answered that he had taken the instructions regarding the letter from his superior A V Venkataramani and on that basis, he had submitted the documents to the bank.

At this, the prosecutor said the witness "may be declared hostile as he is resiling from his previous statement."

Special CBI Judge O P Saini, however, turned down the CBI plea saying "since the matter pertains to a limited point, the witness is not declared hostile but the prosecutor is permitted to cross examine the witness for the reason that he is resiling from his previous statement."