SC rejects plea of Essar challenging spl court's jurisdiction

The Supreme Court today dismissed the pleas of Essar Teleholdings Ltd and its promoters challenging the Special CBI court's jurisdiction to hold trial against them in a case arising out of the probe in 2G spectrum scam, saying their submissions have been rejected earlier.
The court said the grounds raised by the company and its promotors Ravi and Anshuman Ruia were considered by another bench, which had not found merit in their contention that the case be heard by a magisterial court as there was no charge under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).
"We are of the view that the petitioners are attempting to raise submissions which have already been rejected by this Court by its judgment dated July 1, 2013," a bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and justices A K Sikri and R Nariman said.

"We find no infirmity in the impugned judgment. As a result, the appeal and the writ petitions are, therefore, dismissed," it said.
An apex court bench on July 1, 2013 had rejected the pleas of Essar Teleholdings and Loop Telecom that they and their promoters cannot be tried in a case by special CBI court and had directed that all cases pertaining to the scam should be heard by it.
Today, the bench refused to accept Essar's contention that a Special Judge appointed to try PCA cases cannot go into non-PCA cases unless there is a causal link between such cases and the corruption cases, when they can be tried together.

"As has been held by us, once the challenge to the administrative order dated March 15, 2011, is specifically rejected, the offences arising out of the second supplementary chargesheet, being offences under the Penal Code relatable to the 2G scam, can be tried separately only by the Special Judge," the bench said.
It said that since the apex court has held that the March 15, 2011 administrative order of the High court was valid, it is clear that even a Penal Code offence by itself would be within the Special Judge's jurisdiction as the order gives power to the Special Court to decide all offences pertaining to the 2G scam.