SANJAY CHANDRA Vs. C.B.I.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ACCUSED Sanjay Chandra, Vinod Goenka, Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara vide above referred applications under Section 439 Cr.P.C. are seeking bail in case FIR No.RC-DAI-2009-A-0045 P.S. ACB, CBI New Delhi under Section 420, 468, 471 IPC and 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) P.C. Act.

(2.) BRIEFLY stated, allegations in the charge sheet are that during May 2007-2008, the petitioners and public servants, namely, A.Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, his P.S. R.K. Chandolia and the then Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura entered into a criminal conspiracy to cause undue advantage to the petitioners or their companies, namely, Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. and Unitech Group of Companies and caused corresponding loss to the State exchequer by abuse of their official position.

(3.) LEARNED Sh. Mukul Rohtagi, Sr. Advocate appearing for the accused Vinod Goenka submitted that he has been unfairly arrayed as an accused. There is no evidence to show his complicity in the conspiracy. Learned counsel submitted that accused Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka were examined during investigation wherein both of them stated that they were partners in DB Realty Group. However, Vinod Goenka had nothing to do with telecom business of the above company and as per the arrangement between him and Shahid Balwa, he was exclusively looking after the work of hospitality and realty business of the company. No application or document relating to issue of UAS Licence to M/s. Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. was signed by accused Vinod Goenka. This rules out any possibility of his complicity in the conspiracy. Learned counsel further argued that M/s. Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. had applied for UAS Licence on 02nd March, 2007 and it already had a highest priority under the earlier policy of first cum first serve. Thus, M/s. Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. had nothing to gain from the change in policy which is the bedrock of theory of conspiracy. It is further argued that the petitioner has been charged for the offences entailing maximum punishment upto seven years imprisonment. Therefore, the offence allegedly committed by him cannot be termed as the offence of grave magnitude calling for severest of punishment, as such, the other factors being in favour of the petitioner, he is entitled to bail. Petitioner Vinod Goenka has relied upon the judgment of Supreme Court in Gurcharan Singh Vs. State (Delhi Administration), 1978, 1SCC 118 and Anil Mahajan Vs. Commissioner of Customs & Anr., 2000(2) JCC 302. Accused Vinod Goenka has also argued the defence taken on behalf of accused Sanjay Chandra regarding the interpretation of Section 88 Cr.P.C. and the directions issued by this Court in Court on its Own Motion Vs. CBI, 2004(1) JCC 308.