A Special CBI Court at Patiala House today acquitted DMK politicians A Raja, Kanimozhi and fifteen others implicated in the 2G Spectrum case..Special judge OP Saini had reserved his verdict back in April this year, after hearing the case, which began in November 2011, for six years..As per the CBI’s charges, Raja, who was Telecom Minister during the UPA regime, caused huge losses to the state exchequer by undercharging telecom firms for frequency licences. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India had estimated the total loss to be Rs 1.76 trillion..The other accused include former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja’s erstwhile private secretary RK Chandolia, Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd managing director D Sanjay Chandra, and three top executives of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group – Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair..A battery of senior counsel were responsible for getting the accused bail back in 2012. Sanjay Chandra was represented by Senior Counsel Ram Jethmalani on instructions from the ersthwhile Amarchand Mangaldas; Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared for Vinod Goenka; Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara were represented by Senior Advocate Ashok Desai, and Senior Advocate Soli Sorabjee appeared for Gautam Doshi..Before the Patiala House court, Senior Advocates RS Cheema and Rebecca John appeared for Sanjay Chandra, while Amarendra Sharan represented Kanimozhi. Senior Counsel Amit Desai appeared for Karim Morani; he was briefed by a team from Karanjawala & Co headed by Partner Sandeep Kapur..Sidharth Luthra appeared for Siddharth Behura, while SV Raju argued for Vinod Goenka. Saurab Soparkar appeared for Reliance Telecom Limited, and Hariharan represented Surendra Pipara. Advocates Manu Sharma and Babanjeet Singh represented A Raja..Swan Telecom was represented by a team from Luthra & Luthra headed by Senior Partner Vijay Sondhi, Managing Associates Varun Sharma and Deeksha Khurana..Senior Counsel Anand Grover was the Special Public Prosecutor in the case..The Supreme Court had, in February 2012, cancelled 122 telecom licenses and spectrum allocated to nine companies, holding that the process of allocation was faulty..Read the judgment:
