A special court on Friday charged former telecom minister A. Raja, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Kanimozhi and 16 others for money laundering in a case related to the 2G spectrum scam.
The court also framed charges against DMK chief M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal.
"Charges framed against individuals and companies in money laundering case of 200 crores. All the accused have pleaded not guilty. The trial is going to continue," said Vijay Aggarwal, the lawyer for the accused.
The accused have been charged under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the 2G scam.
The court had earlier granted bail to all the accused in the 2G scam case, including A. Raja and Kanimozhi.
The 2G spectrum scam involved both politicians and government officials in India illegally undercharging mobile telephone companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they would then use to create 2G spectrum subscriptions for cell phones.
The shortfall between the money collected and the money that the law mandated to be collected is estimated to be Rs.1766.45 billion (USD 29 billion), as valued by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India based on 3G and BWA spectrum auction prices in 2010.
In a chargesheet filed on April 2, 2011, by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the loss was pegged at Rs. 3,09,845.5 million (USD 5.1 billion), whereas on August 19, 2011 in a reply to CBI, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the government gained over Rs.30 billion (USD 500 million) by giving away 2G spectrum.
Kapil Sibal, the then Communications and Information Technology Minister, had said that 'zero loss' was caused by distributing 2G licenses on first-come-first-served basis.
It has to be pointed out, however, that "zero loss" can simply mean that frequencies were not sold for less than cost. The phrase indicates nothing about the legitimacy of the sale.
All the speculations of profit, loss, and no-loss were put to rest on February 2, 2012, when the Supreme Court of India delivered a judgment on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which was directly related to the 2G spectrum scam.
The Supreme Court declared the allotment of spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary" and quashed all 122 licenses issued in 2008 during the tenure of A. Raja. The court further said that A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away an important national asset."
The zero loss theory was further demolished on August 3, 2012, when, as per the directions of the Supreme Court, the Government of India revised the base price for 5 MHz 2G spectrum auction to Rs.140 billion (USD 2.3 billion), leading the value of spectrum to amount to roughly Rs.28 billion (USD 460 million) per MHz: a figure close to the CAG's estimate of Rs.33.5 billion (USD 560 million) per MHz.
