2G case: Court to resume hearing final arguments from Aug 4

A special court would resume from August 4 the final arguments in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case in which former Telecom Minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and 15 others are facing trial.
"Put the matter for further hearing on August 4," Special CBI Judge O P Saini said while hearing final arguments advanced by the CBI prosecutor in the case.
During the final arguments earlier, CBI had alleged that Raja had "misled" then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on policy matters pertaining to 2G spectrum allocation in conspiracy with others to favour certain firms.
CBI had also claimed that favour was done to "ineligible" firms, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd and Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, at the behest of Raja who had changed the first-come- first-served policy to suit them.

In its charge sheet, CBI had said there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of 122 licences for 2G spectrum which were scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 2, 2012.
Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance ADAG -- Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair -- are facing trial in the case.

Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV Director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also accused in the case.

Besides these, 14 accused persons, three telecom firms -- Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd , Reliance Telecom Ltd and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd, are also accused in the case.
The court had on October 22, 2011, framed charges against them under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, faking documents, abusing official position, criminal misconduct by public servant and taking bribe.
The offences entail punishment ranging from six months in jail to life imprisonment.