SIDDHARTHA BEHURA Vs. CBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SIDDHARTHA Behura, the petitioner herein is seeking bail in case RC No.DAI-2009-A-0045 P.S. ACB, CBI New Delhi under Sections 420, 468, 471 and 120B IPC and 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(d) of the P.C. Act.

(2.) BRIEFLY stated, allegations in the charge sheet are that during the period of May 2007-2008, the petitioner, a public servant, entered into a criminal conspiracy with Shri A.Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Shri R.K. Chandolia, PS to the Minister and the other co-accused persons with the object to cause undue pecuniary advantage to the private persons named as accused in the charge sheet and their companies, namely, M/s Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. and Unitech Group of Companies and in furtherance of said conspiracy, he and his co-accused persons caused undue pecuniary advantage to M/s Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd. and Unitech Group of Companies and caused corresponding loss to the State exchequer by abuse of their official position.

(3.) ON 2nd November, 2007, Director (AS-I) DOT initiated a note seeking for issue of Letters of Intent as per the existing policy of first come first served. The then Telecom Secretary returned the file with the noting, "action may be initiated after orders of MOC & IT are obtained on the issue. He had expressed his desire to discuss this A fresh note was put up by Director (AS-I) of DOT on 7th further." November, 2007 highlighting the existing policy and pointing out that a policy statement in that regard was made in Rajya Sabha on 23rd August, 2007. A draft Letter of Intent was also put up along with the note for approval of the Minister. Accused A.Raja approved the note, but deliberately replaced Para 3 of the draft LOI with the following:"the date of payment of entry fee would be priority date for signing the licence agreement. If the date of payment of entry fee in more than one case is the same, then the licence will be first signed with the applicant whose application was received earlier."