By IANS,
New Delhi : A special trial court Friday rejected a petition of 2G case accused Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa and and Swan Telecom director Vinod Goenka seeking permission to go to Mumbai and also fined them Rs.15,000 each.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special Judge O.P. Saini said: “The applications are not only without merit but have been filed with a view to waste the valuable time of this court and such deserves to be dismissed with heavy cost.”
The judge took this action after being fed up with the number of applications filed before him seeking permission for a number of unwanted things, which actually barred him from concentrating on regular hearing of the case.
Judge Saini said: “As far as cost is concerned, I am inclined to take a little lenient view in the hope that the accused shall improve in future and will not file such frivolous applications.”
“All the three applications are dismissed subject to nominal cost of Rs.15,000.”
Shahid and Goenka moved an application seeking permission to appear before the assistant commissioner income tax on June 26.
Shahid has also moved an application before the court seeking permission to attend an extraordinary general meeting of his joint venture company June 15 in Mumbai.
The CBI’s first chargesheet April 2 named former communications minister A. Raja, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, Raja’s aide R.K. Chandolia, Shahid, Goenka, Unitech Wireless’s Sanjay Chandra and three executives of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.
In its April 25 supplementary chargesheet, the CBI named DMK MP Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV chief Sharad Kumar as co-conspirators after it traced an illegal money trail of Rs.214 crore in the scam.
The supplementary chargesheet also named Cineyug Films founder Karim Morani and Asif Balwa and Rajiv B. Aggarwal of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt. Ltd.
The scam relates to alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum to telecom firms, causing huge losses to the national exchequer.