Attorney General Goolam E Vahnavati and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia are among the 125 witnesses listed in the Central Bureau of Investigation chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam.
Notwithstanding rejection of his resignation by the Tamil Nadu government, Dr V Dekal, who performed the post-mortem on the body of Sadiq Batcha, a close aide of former telecom minister A Raja, filed his nomination on Saturday for the April 13 Assembly polls as an independent.
"The death was caused due to asphyxia but the cause of that cannot be confirmed until the forensic report is received," he told mediapersons, adding that the entire autopsy was videographed. A team of doctors performed the autopsy at Royapettah Hospital for nearly three hours starting 10 am.
The mysterious death of former telecom minister A Raja's close aide Sadiq Batcha was on Thursday brought to the notice of the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the plea for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe in the matter.
Vicky Nanjappa analyses how the death of Sajid Batcha could impact the ongoing Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the 2G Spectrum scam
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the government to constitute a special court to exclusively deal with the 2G spectrum scam that has caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 1.76 trillion) to the exchequer.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday night arrested Dynamix Balwas group managing director Shahid Usman Balwa in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Paving the way for proceedings against a lawyer who allegedly tried to influence a Madras High Court judge by taking former Telecom Minister A Raja's name, the Supreme Court vacated its stay and asked Bar Council of India (BCI) to decide the complaint against him.
Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy moved the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of the 2G spectrum licences alloted during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja allegedly in violation of all norms and procedure causing huge loss to the state exchequer.
"The Bhartiya Janata Party wants to use the Joint Parliamentary Committee as the political tool. It's the issue of ego. It's a political demand so the Congress is not agreeing to it," says Janardhan Dwivedi, chairman of media cell of the Congress, while talking exclusively to rediff.com about why Congress is not agreeing to a JPC to look into allegations related to the allotment of 2G spectrum.
Parliament was on Thursday paralysed for the second day with the Opposition storming the Well in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, demanding the ouster of Telecom Minister A Raja, while Congress members denounced the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for K S Sudarshan's anti-Sonia Gandhi remarks.In the Lok Sabha, Bharatiya Janata Party members rushed to the Well, raising slogans against Raja. They were joined by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Shiv Sena members.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on Monday commenced the process of recording the statement of Dayalu Ammal, wife of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo M Karunanidhi, in the 2G Spectrum case.
Brushing aside Centre's objections, the Supreme Court on Friday said it would pass an order for the appointment of senior advocate U U Lalit as special public prosecutor for holding the trial of former telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum case on a day-to-day basis without any adjournments.
The judgment in the 2G case is a huge, huge, indictment of the criminal investigation and justice system, says R Jagannathan.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday registered a case and began a probe into the death of Sadiq Batcha, a close aide of former telecom minister A Raja who has been arrested in the multi-crore spectrum allocation scam. The agency has started its investigations under Section 174 of the CrPC in the mysterious death of Batcha, who was found hanging at his home in Chennai on March 16.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it is willing to take over the probe into the mysterious death of Sadiq Batcha, a close aide of 2G spectrum case accused and former telecom minister A Raja.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a two-day extension to the Central Bureau of investigation to file on April 2 its charge sheet against former telecom minister A Raja and others in the 2G spectrum allocation case even as the agency said it was readying an 80,000-page document for submission.
Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has called leading industrialists, including Ratan Tata and Anil Ambani, and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia to appear before the panel in connection with the 2G spectrum scam which it is probing.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's daughter and party member of Parliament Kanimozhi says she will "stand and fight" even if the Central Bureau of Investigation names her in the 2G spectrum scam chargesheet, which is expected to be filed soon.
Dr V Dekal, who heads the department of forensic sciences at the Madras Medical College, said he had put in his papers on March 3, over a fortnight before Batcha's suicide, to contest the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.
The one-member Shivraj Patil committee report, which was made public in its entirety on Thursday, has put in the dock communications ministers and key bureaucrats in the department of telecom since 2001.
Balwa, who is accused along with 16 others in the case, claimed that he cannot be prosecuted for pushing back Tata in the race as the firm was never in the race to get the 2G spectrum licence
Minister of state for telecom Sachin Pilot said state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will deploy 10,000 mobile towers in rural areas by March 2010 and another 15,000 by March, 2011.
"There has been interest from various foreign companies in the planned 3G auction," telecom minister A Raja told reporters in Geneva, exuding confidence that the auction of 3G and Wi-Max spectrum would generate at least Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) of revenue for the Indian government.
The CDMA and GSM operators in the country are at loggerheads once again, this time over the implementation of mobile number portability.
The department of telecommunication had earlier said a CDMA operator had written a letter to the government seeking auction of additional spectrum against the current subscriber-led allocation.
The controversial report of the JPC, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G spectrum scam saying he was "misled" by the then Telecom Minister A Raja, was on Monday tabled in Lok Sabha amid pandemonium.
Mishra, a 1967 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has served in various administrative field positions.
Foreign players too will be allowed to compete in the 3G space.
Sandwiched between employees' threat of a strike and telecom minister A Raja's insistence to renegotiate the GSM expansion deal, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited said on Friday it hopes to find a solution soon for ending the impasse.
'If the prime minister was really serious, then he should have removed Raja long back,' says Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, whose earlier 45.5 million GSM line tender was cut to half, will invite fresh bids for installing up to 50 million lines to expand its cellular capacity.
Money laundering is punishable under the provisions of PMLA.
During the arguments on the bail pleas, ED had argued that the accused had committed the offence of money laundering punishable under provisions of PMLA.
The accused had also requested the court to take on record the written answers afresh.
The controversial report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G spectrum scam saying he was "misled" by the then Telecom Minister A Raja, was on Tuesday submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
The Government on Friday managed to have its way in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G scam when the panel approved the draft report giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram with a 16-11 vote in its favour.
Dayalu Ammal, 84, has been given an option to present her case through an authorised legal representative, in case she cannot come herself and answer questions of agency sleuths on March 28 in New Delhi, sources said.
In the wake of the 2G acquittals, here are a few high-profile cases in which question marks were raised by various courts over the CBI's probe.
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