The trial for the 2G spectrum issue has begun.
A. Raja, former Minister of Telecommunications and IT and Siddharth Behura, former secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are being tried for criminal breach of trust by a public servant, while the 14 other individuals indicted in the case are being tried for criminal conspiracy.
On the first day of the trial, Raja’s legal counsel stated that he would not cross-examine the witnesses being produced by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as the agency had not completed its scrutiny of the issue.
Judge O.P. Saini rejected Raja’s request. Also, the first witness, Anand Subramaniam, assistant vice president at Reliance Capital Limited contradicted the statement he gave earlier to the CBI.
Subramaniam said that he could not recollect under whose advice he had issued a letter for opening an account with HDFC Bank for Swan Telecom.
In his statement recorded earlier by the CBI, he had said that he had issued a letter for opening a bank account for Swan Telecom on telephonic instructions from Hari Nair, senior vice president, Reliance Communications (RCOM), also indicted in the case.
The CBI has charged Swan Telecom of being a front for Reliance Telecom, in violations of existing guidelines which do not permit an operator to have more than 10 per cent stake in two operators.
Besides Subramaniam, the special CBI court has identified 28 witnesses who will appear before it through November.
