Five top corporate executives, who are named as accused in the first chargesheet filed by the CBI in the 2G spectrum allocation case, appeared before a Special Court on Wednesday to seek bail.

The CBI opposed the bail plea on the ground that after the filing of the chargesheet, the status of these five persons under the law has changed to “accused” from being just “suspects” in the case earlier.

The agency, however, sought more time to file its reply. The Special Court then granted the CBI time till April 15 and asked the executives to be present in the court during the hearing on that day.

On April 2, the day when the CBI filed its 80,000-page chargesheet, the court had issued summons to the five accused for April 13.

The executives are: Mr Sanjay Chandra, the Managing Director of Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd; Mr Gautam Doshi, Group MD, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group; Mr Hari Nair, Senior Vice-President, Reliance ADA Group; Mr Surendra Pipara, Senior Vice-President, R-ADA Group and Reliance Telecom Ltd, and Mr Vinod Goenka, Director, Swan Telecom and Managing Director of DB Realty.

The accused have sought bail claiming they are entitled to it because they were not arrested by the CBI during the probe. They also said they were willing to abide by any conditions that the court imposes on them.

However, the Special Public Prosecutor (PP), Mr U.U. Lalit, representing the CBI, opposed the bail plea saying the accused are not entitled for release on bail by default on their appearance before the court. He added that the accused will have to justify their bail plea since their status has become ‘accused'. He also cited a legal provision to put the accused in custody during the trial.

In the order, the Special Judge, Mr O.P. Saini, said, “Arguments on the bail applications heard for about an hour for both sides and thereafter, the Special PP prays that he may be granted time for filing reply to the bail and till then status quo may be allowed to continue as far as the five applicants/accused persons are concerned.”

The lawyers for the accused opposed the Special PP's plea and wanted a decision on the bail plea on Wednesday itself as arguments on the same were already heard. The court said, “However, considering the nature of the case, prayer of Special PP is reluctantly allowed.”

THREAT TO WITNESSES

Mr Lalit said out of the 180 prosecution witnesses in the case, some are under ‘political perception of threat.' He then handed over some classified documents to the court. When the lawyers for the accused asked for a copy of the document, Mr Lalit said that it is not for them as the CBI may use them in their reply to the bail plea of the accused.

Senior advocate Mr Mukul Rohtagi, seeking bail for his client Mr Goenka, said if an accused is not arrested during the probe, then there is no question of his arrest subsequently. He sought to know the reasons for CBI's apprehension, especially when his client has appeared before the agency during the probe and now before the court. He said the prosecutor was arguing as if it is a heinous offence when the maximum sentence in such cases is seven years.

Senior advocate Mr K.T.S. Tulsi, representing Mr Chandra, said when a person is not required for custodial interrogation, he shall not be arrested at the time when he appears before the court.

Also present in the court were the other accused who are already arrested: the former IT and Communications Minister, Mr A Raja; former Telecom Secretary, Mr Siddhartha Behura; Mr Raja's personal secretary, Mr R.K. Chandolia; and Director of Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB), Mr Shahid Usman Balwa. They have been lodged in Tihar jail here.

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