Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa has informed a Delhi court that all 17 individuals indicted in the 2G spectrum allocation case cannot be charged on grounds of criminal breach of trust. He said that this was because spectrum was not akin to a piece of property to be ?owned? by any of them.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is considering framing additional charges under section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC against former Minister of Telecommunications and IT, A. Raja and others accused in the case.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Balwa, informed Special CBI Judge OP Saini that Raja did not have a dominion over radio waves and spectrum has been the domain of the Department of Telecommunications [DoT] since 1995. He added that in this period, neither the government nor DoT considered it a commodity.
