A CBI court on Thursday issued a notice to the premier probe agency on the issue of interference with witness testimony. Special Judge O P Saini’s notice was based on an application that Swan Telecom filed, saying that the court should restrain the CBI from interfering with a witness’ testimony just before court appearance. The company’s managing director, Vinod Goenka, said Central Bureau of Investigation has been doing that “in the name of refreshing the witness’ memory”.
The court has now asked the investigative agency to file its reply on the matter by November 23.
Goenka’s advocate Majid Memon, in his application, asked the court to prevent the “unhealthy practice of calling witness unofficially and tampering (with) the evidence”. The complaint was filed in the light of a statement made in the court yesterday by prosecution witness A N Sethuraman, who is Group president of Reliance ADAG. Sethuraman had said he was called by CBI deputy SP Rajesh Chehal on November 9 this year to go through his statement — and stick to it in the court. This was two days before the 2G trial started.
“It is incorrect to say that I was told by the CBI to depose in a particular manner,” Sethuraman said. “The CBI official did say to me to follow whatever I had earlier stated in my statement.”
Memon also sought the preservation of the records of the calls Sethuraman received from the CBI officials, as they “are likely to be required later” during the trial. The cross-examination of Sethuraman was completed on Thursday with Memon and H H Ponda, counsel for Hari Nair (a 2G accused from Reliance ADAG), asking the last set of questions. Sethuraman denied he had any discussion with the CBI officials over who all should be called as witnesses from Reliance group and who as suspects.
Sethuraman also talked about Anand Bhatt whom he had earlier mentioned in his statement, saying Bhatt had instructed him to file the application for spectrum licence in March 2007. Bhatt, who died the next year in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, was a director in Swan Telecom besides being “a famous Solicitor”, Sethuraman said.
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Meanwhile, accused R K Chandolia, who was personal secretary to A Raja when the DMK MP was telecom minister, filed a petition in the special court on Thursday, for calling the main witnesses of the case before others. These include former telecom officials A K Srivastava, K Sridhara and Aseervatham Achary, former additional private secretary to Raja. Chandolia, in his application, said “those three witnesses if recorded first would help the accused in many ways”. He also said there was no justification for calling of witnesses in a particular fashion as desired by the prosecutor. “Ailing and elderly witnesses should be called first,” he said, pointing out that there were 125 witnesses in the first chargesheet and 29 in the supplementary one. There are 11 additional witnesses in the case.
Chandolia, along with two other accused — Asif Balwa of Kusegaon Foods and Vegetables and Shahid Balwa of Swan Telecom. also filed an application in the special court for the alteration of the charge of criminal breach of trust. Their counsel Vijay Aggarwal said in the petition that there was “no description of quantity, measure of alleged ‘property’ allegedly disposed off… so as to give an opportunity to the accused to understand the charge he has to meet and defend”. He sought quantification of the loss that has been caused on account of the conspiracy or breach of trust.