Relief for ex-telecom secy, court raps CBI for fabricating facts

“I find myself in agreement with the defence counsel that TRAI recommendations were already there and DoT was not required to ask for fresh recommendations”, Special CBI Judge OP Saini said while discharging ex-telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh and the three telecom firms in the case.

“The rumour has it that the Finance Minister manages the CBI better than anybody else.

Perhaps it has been done deliberately to indicate that the demand for additional spectrum started only in 2001 on late Pramod Mahajan joining the Ministry”, the court said in its 235-page order. “There is no doubt that the chargesheet was filed at the behest of Shri Kapil Sibal, the Telecom Minister in the UPA Government”, said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hitting out at the former Congress Minister.

Not only did the Special Court discharge the accused due to lack on incremental evidence, but also termed the chargesheet filed by the CBI as fabricated.

“The conclusion of the analysis of the events, evidences, documents and other materials on record is that the charge sheet is a distorted and fabricated document, based on deliberate redacted and garbled facts”. He suggested that the chargesheet was filed for “extraneous reasons”. “Since the charge sheet has been found to be full of distorted and fabricated facts, an attempt has been made to mislead the Court, Director, CBI is directed to conduct an inquiry against the erring officers and take actions as per law”.

The agency, in its 57-page charge sheet, had said the decision regarding allocation of additional spectrum to these telecom firms was taken in “undue haste” in pursuance to the conspiracy hatched amongst Mahajan, Ghosh and these companies.

“When the telecom sector was riddled with scams, Sibal selected a retired judge of his choice and asked him to unearth an NDA scam in telecom”, a post on his Facebook account stated. “I would suggest that this particular allegation of Mr. Jaitley is also manufactured”, Sibal said.

The case relates to the department of telecommunications allocating additional spectrum in a decision taken on January 31, 2002, when the National Democratic Alliance was in power, allegedly resulting in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer. “Accordingly, the accused stand discharged”, the judge said.

It remains to be seen whether the CBI will act against its own officers.