Additional spectrum case: Court to hear matter on Feb 6

A special 2G court today fixed February 6 to hear the 2002 additional spectrum allocation scam case in which the CBI had chargesheeted former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini fixed the case for Friday after the defence counsel told the court that they needed some documents from CBI which were filed along with charge sheet.

The court asked the CBI to provide the documents as sought by the counsel for the accused. The agency has already supplied the copies of charge sheet and documents filed along with it to the accused.

The court was earlier informed that the Supreme Court has quashed the order summoning Bharti Cellular Ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the case.

Hearing in the case was virtually stalled since April 26, 2013 interim order of the apex court which had said that proceedings against Mittal and Ruia, who had challenged trial court's summoning order, will remain "postponed" until further orders.

The apex court had cleared the decks for Mittal and Ruia by setting aside the order summoning them, observing that the principle of 'alter ego' has wrongly been applied by the trial judge in seeking presence of both the top corporate honchos as accused.

Besides Mittal, Ruia and Shyamal Ghosh, the special court had also summoned Canada-based NRI Asim Ghosh, who was then a managing director of accused firm Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd, as accused. Mittal, Ruia and Asim Ghosh were not named as accused in the CBI charge sheet.

CBI had filed the charge sheet in the case on December 21, 2012 against Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms -- Bharti Cellular Ltd, Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt Ltd (now known as Vodafone India Ltd) and Sterling Cellular Ltd (now known as Vodafone Mobile Service Ltd).

The agency had chargesheeted them as accused in the case relating to the Department of Telecommunications allocating additional spectrum which had allegedly resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.

In the 57-page charge sheet, CBI has booked Shyamal Ghosh and the three firms for the offences of criminal conspiracy (120-B) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.