Delhi HC to hear on Jan 31 plea challenging CBI appeal against acquittal in 2G case

The Delhi High Court on Monday slated a petition filed by RK Chandolia, one of the accused in 2G spectrum case and then private secretary of former telecom minister A Raja, to be heard on January 31.

Chandolia had recently moved an application in the High Court stating that CBI's appeal challenging their acquittal is now 'infructuous' due to the 2018 amendment to the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

In his plea, Chandolia said that by virtue of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018, substituting Section 13 of the PC Act, 1988, the charge of criminal misconduct no longer applies to him.

According to the plea, the PC Act 2018 was introduced to remedy such gross misuse of the power of launching criminal prosecution by investigating agencies against honest officers, who may have been negligent, but were not accused of receiving any illegal gratification.

"In this case, there is no allegation by the appellant CBI against the applicant of dishonest or fraudulent misappropriation of property or illegal enrichment by the present applicant," the plea said.

Chandolia's plea, filed by advocate Vijay Aggarwal, said that it is a settled proposition of law that once an Act is repealed and that it must be considered as if it had never existed and same would be considered obliterated from the statute books.

"The applicant (Chandolia) and other accused persons have acquired a vested right after having been declared innocent and exonerated from all the charges including but not limited to under the stringent section 13 (1) (d) of PC Act which is no longer a law in force," it said.

The plea stated that the 2018 amendment has entirely changed the definition of the offence of "criminal misconduct", as relevant to the case.

Chandolia argued that the High Court has to make a preliminary enquiry as to whether the allegations would stand in view of the narrower definition of "criminal misconduct" after the amendment.

The High Court is currently also dealing with the CBI's appeal challenging the acquittal of all accused including Raja in the 2G spectrum case.