The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the bail appeals of Kanimozhi, MP, and Kalaignar TV managing director Sharad Kumar, both charged in the telecom spectrum scam, after a short hearing. There were earlier rejections by the trial court and the high court.
The only concession the SC gave was that Kanimozhi was allowed to, the next time she asked the trial court for bail, to be allowed to use the argument of special consideration for beign a woman, as provided in Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It was an argument earlier turned down by trial court and HC, which had said the enormity of the charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act did not entitle her to any lenience.
Her lawyer pleaded, in vain, she was willing to undertake any restriction on her movements if givend bail. “There is no provision for (electronic) anklets as in the US, but she may be shadowed anywhere. In any case, she is coming to the daily hearing to the special (trial) court,” lawyer Sushil Kumar said. But it did not prevail on the bench of judges G S Singhvi and B S Chauhan.
Kalaignar TV, run by the ruling family of the DMK party in Tamil Nadu, whose supremo is Kanimozhi's father, is charged with being a conduit for at least Rs 200 crore of alleged bribe money paid by telecom companies to get licences from then minister A Raja, a party colleague of Kanimozhi and also in jail here.
Her counsel said she was director of the TV firm for only 14 days in 2007 and did not sign any documents connected to the 2009 channeling of Rs 200 crore to the TV. She was not even present in the board room when the decision was taken. She was an MP living in Delhi and never failed to attend the day-to-day hearing of the case. So, there was no scope of hampering investigation or tampering with evidence.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) opposed Kanimozhi's pleas, contending the original documents regarding the illegal financial transactions were yet to be recovered and the accused might tamper with evidence if released on bail. Counsel A S Chandiok said two courts below had denied her bail and the Supreme Court should not interfere with those orders.
On behalf of Sharad Kumar, counsel Altaf Ahmad argued he was being punished with imprisonment even before conviction. The chargesheet was 80,000 pages long and there were nearly 160 witnesses to be examined. Therefore, even daily hearing would take considerable time. Till then, it would be unjust to keep the accused persons in prison when there was no chance of tampering with evidence or hampering investigation.
