NEW DELHI: The CBI contended before the Delhi High Court on Tuesday that there were glaring illegalities in the trial court judgment that acquitted former telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was making submissions on its appeal challenging the acquittal of the accused individuals and firms, argued that the evidence placed before the special court was disregarded.Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma, after hearing part arguments, listed the matter for further proceedings on May 29.
“I will demonstrate that there are glaring illegalities in the (trial court) judgment. The evidence placed by the CBI was disregarded. Appreciation of evidence was completely wrong. I will show that the judgment was perverse and there were flaws in it,” advocate Neeraj Jain, who appeared in the court on behalf of the CBI, argued.
On Monday, the CBI counsel had said the trial court judgment was based on “wrong conclusions” and was “untenable in law”.Although the CBI had earlier concluded its submissions on the issue of “leave to appeal”, it is now arguing the matter afresh due to a change of the judge.Leave to appeal is a formal permission granted by a court to a party to challenge a decision in a higher court.
The lawyer for the CBI had said the case concerned “five points” of irregularities — association between government officials and telecom operators, fixation of a cut-off, violation of the first-come-first-serve principle, non-revision of the entry fee and a money trail of Rs 200 crore.
The illegal acts of the accused caused a loss of Rs 22,000 crore to the public exchequer, he had said.An appeal filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the acquittal of all the accused in a connected money-laundering case is also pending before the court.