By IANS,
New Delhi : Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, who is an accused in the 2G spectrum scam, Saturday denied the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) allegations against him saying that the probe agency has no evidence against him.
“There is no prima facie evidence with the CBI to prove that my client was either involved in the criminal conspiracy or has caused any loss to the national exchequer by cheating,” Chandra’s counsel R.S. Cheema told CBI special judge O.P. Saini here.
“The CBI is trying to create evidence by analysing the facts as it suits them… the evidence in the charge sheet is very shaky and vague,” Cheema said.
Saying that Chandra was only a “policy taker and not the policy maker”, his counsel added: “It would be unjustified to say that we manipulated the policy as the policy was formulated by the government.”
“The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommendation said that there should be no auction. Even the ex-deputy director general of department of telecommunication A.K. Srivastava and a prosecution witness endorsed the TRAI recommendations. I was nowhere involved,” Chandra said.
He added that even former communications minister A. Raja followed the policy decisions. “He had no power to order auction.”
Arguing that he had no prior knowledge about the issuance of the letter of intent (LOI) for a telecom licence, Chandra opposed the CBI allegation stated that he had prior knowledge about it because of which he prepared the demand drafts in advance.
“The UASL (Unified Access Service License) guidelines of 2005 mentioned all the details required while applying for licences. It clearly stated that the pan-India fees for application is Rs.1,658 crore. That was not a secret as it was in public domain and was known to everybody so I kept my papers and demand draft ready according to the guidelines,” Cheema said.
Cheema said even if he assumed that it was a conspiracy and his client (Chandra) had prior knowledge: “He would have been foolish to have dumped the money much earlier which could have got him crores (of rupees) of interest.”
He claimed that the needle of suspicion should rather be raised on people who got the demand draft ready just a day before depositing it.
Seeking a separate trial in this case, defence counsel said: “Except him, all other accused are inter-linked and even as per the charge sheet the co-accused have a common objective.”
“There is no distinction between the case of Idea, Spice and Chandra’s Unitech (Wireless),” Cheema added.
Cheema said that it was not acceptable that the CBI raised question on how Unitech, a real estate company, could enter the telecom business.
Chandra’s wife was also present in the court. She stood beside him near the judge’s dais, carefully listening to the arguments.