Surplus spectrum case: Court reserves order on charge for September 26

New Delhi: A special court on Monday reserved for next month its order on framing charges in the 2002 additional spectrum allocation case in which former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom companies were chargesheeted by the CBI.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini also reserved the order on the bail plea of Ghosh after concluding hearing the arguments. The court said since records of the case were voluminous and technical in nature, sufficient time was required to go through them before passing order.

"Arguments on charge are complete for both parties. Since the record of the case is voluminous and technical in nature and the arguments for the parties also continued for more than two weeks, sufficient time is required to go through the massive record," the judge said.

"Accordingly, put up the matter for order on charge as well as bail application of accused Shyamal Ghosh on September 26," the court said.

The court also gave liberty to the CBI as well as accused to file written submissions within seven days. Ghosh and three telecom firms, Hutchison Max (P)Ltd, Sterling Cellular Ltd and Bharti Cellular Ltd were chargesheeted by CBI in the case relating to Department of Telecom allocating additional spectrum that had allegedly resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer. CBI had earlier argued that Ghosh had given additional spectrum to telecom companies at "throwaway prices" causing a huge loss to the exchequer.

Ghosh had countered CBI's submissions arguing that private companies were not the only beneficiaries of surplus radio waves, but state-run MTNL and BSNL had also benefitted. He had asserted that it cannot be said that allocation was done primarily to benefit private companies and that he had not abused his official position in any manner.

Similarly, the accused firms had also countered CBI's loss theory saying the companies were allotted "spare radio waves" which would have caused gain to the government.