Surplus spectrum: Order on jurisdiction of 2G court on July 20

A special court today deferred till Monday the pronouncement of its order on pleas filed by two telecom firms, chargesheeted along with others in the 2002 additional spectrum allocation case, challenging its jurisdiction to deal with the matter.
Special CBI Judge O P Saini, who had on July 6 reserved order on the issue and said it would deliver it on July 20.
CBI had earlier opposed the jurisdiction issue raised by two accused firms - M/s Hutchison Max(P) Ltd and M/s Sterling Cellular Ltd, saying the case was part of 2G spectrum scam.
Special public prosecutor Anand Grover had told the court that the case was among the various matters being monitored by the Supreme Court in connection with the 2G scam.

The firms had challenged the special court's jurisdiction to deal with the matter on the ground that their case did not relate to the 2G spectrum scam.
They had contended that the special court was constituted to deal with matters pertaining to 2G scam only and additional spectrum case was not covered under it.

The accused had argued that they never got licence in the period 2001 to 2008, which is under probe by CBI on the apex court's direction and were already an existing licensee.
Former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms -- M/s Hutchison Max (P) Ltd, M/s Sterling Cellular Ltd and Bharti Cellular Ltd, were chargesheeted by CBI in the case relating to Department of Telecommunications allocating additional spectrum that had allegedly resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.

The special court was earlier informed that the Supreme Court had quashed the order summoning Bharti Cellular Ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the case.
The apex court had on January 9 this year set aside the order summoning Mittal and Ruia, observing that the principle of 'alter ego' has been wrongly applied by the trial judge in seeking the presence of Mittal and Ruia 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 Hutchison Max Pvt Ltd, as an accused.

Mittal, Ruia and Asim Ghosh were not named as accused in the CBI charge sheet filed on December 21, 2012.
In the 57-page charge sheet, CBI has booked Shyamal Ghosh and the three firms for the offences of criminal conspiracy (120-B) of IPC and under Prevention of Corruption Act.