SC tells CBI to prosecute Shyamal Ghosh, Bharti Airtel & Vodafone
spectrum when the late Pramod Mahajan of the BJP was telecom minister.
"We are of the opinion that CBI will take action in accordance with the view expressed by CBI director against some persons and companies," the bench said. The court said the retirement of the present director will not come in the way and the agency will proceed with his view as he is the highest functionary in the CBI and he has taken a particular view.
In the earlier hearing, the bench had questioned why the CBI was seeking the AG's opinion on the issue when the government had appointed a special public prosecutor for the prosecution of the cases arising out of the investigation in the 2G spectrum scam.
As is known, the CBI had expanded its probe into the 2G spectrum scam of 2008 centring around Raja to include all spectrum allocations since 2001. This was done after Kapil Sibal, who took charge of the telecom ministry after Raja, said that spectrum allocations without auctions were done by the NDA government also. Subsequently, he constituted a one-man inquiry under retired justice Shivraj Patil, which pointed out a number of irregularities.
Broadly, the CBI's charge is that Bharti and Vodafone were beneficiaries of the department of telecommunications' move on January 31, 2002, to allocate additional spectrum. It has said that Mahajan and Ghosh showed undue haste in clearing the proposal, bypassing the Telecom Commission, Trai, member (finance) and the wireless advisor.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who was appearing for NGO Centre for Public
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