The Delhi High Court on Tuesday, 29 September accepted the pleas moved by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate for early hearing of whether to grant leave to appeal in the 2G case.
Justice Brijesh Sethi ordered that the matter will be heard on a day-to-day basis from 5 October, bringing it forward by one week from the original schedule.
The CBI and ED had asked for this to take place so that the matter could be decided before Justice Sethi retires on 30 November 2020 – the matter had been part heard by the judge already, with the CBI finishing its main arguments. If it had been taken up after Justice Sethi’s retirement, all arguments would have had to start from scratch.
Special judge OP Saini had acquitted all the accused in the infamous 2G scam case on 21 December 2017, including DMK politicians A Raja and Kanimozhi. The CBI and ED filed appeals against the verdict in March 2018. However, the appeals had not progressed as the high court had not yet granted its leave for the appeals to proceed, ie, it had not granted the required permission for the acquittals to be challenged.
Thus, the proceedings which will take place from 5 October are not the appeals themselves, but the investigating agencies’ request for the Delhi High Court to agree to reconsider the two judgments by the lower court. Judge Saini had delivered two verdicts on the same day after hearing the matters together: a 1,550 page judgment on the CBI’s case for corruption, forgery, cheating, etc and a 105 page judgment on the ED’s case for money-laundering.
In addition to the politicians, businessmen like the Essar Group’s Ruia brothers, as well as Gautam Doshi from Anil Ambani’s Reliance group, were also acquitted of their alleged roles in the spectrum allocation scandal.
Lawyers for the accused had argued that there was no urgency to take up the case, since the high court was only taking up pending criminal matters where the accused was still in custody, given the inability to conduct physical hearings because of the COVID pandemic. They also argued that the upcoming retirement of a judge was not sufficient grounds to seek an early hearing.
Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, arguing for the agencies, had contended that the special court had failed to appreciate clinching evidence available on record, and that the acquittal had “adversely affected the interest of the Government of India and public exchequer in other related proceedings.” Noting that the matter had been part heard, he argued that the matter should be heard expeditiously as the CBI and ED pleas had “great public importance involving issues of integrity”.
Despite acknowledging the argument of the accused that the matter involved voluminous materials, Justice Sethi held that it was necessary for him to take up this case.
“The judicial discipline demands that the Judge should do his duty and must not succumb to pessimism and it is not expected from him to sit leisurely with his pen down and to say that he will not hear the cases because the record is voluminous and the time at his disposal is limited.”Justice Sethi’s order
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