Friday 14 December 2012

2G Spectrum Case: Chief Justice refers Shahid Balwa’s plea to Special Bench

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir has refused to entertain 2G scam accused Shahid Balwa's plea to set aside an order issued by another of its benches monitoring the high profile case, dealing a blow to him and all other accused in the case.
Balwa, the founder of defunct mobile firm Swan Telecom, his brother Asif and two associates in his real estate group DB Realty — Vinod Goenka and Rajiv Agarwal — had earlier this week moved Chief Justice Kabir's bench to set aside the stay imposed by the 2G bench on the Delhi High Court's right to quash charges against them.

But the bench on Thursday did not entertain the plea, and worse, sent it back to the other bench, comprising Justices GS Singhvi and KS Radhakrishnan.
The two judges had on November 9 stayed all proceedings pending in the high court related to the criminal case stemming out of the 2G case in response to a plea by the CBI.
The investigating agency had objected to the Delhi HC interfering despite a specific order passed by the 2G bench directing all other courts to desist from dealing with any related case.
"Let the other bench decide," Justice Kabir said in a short order passed in consultation with Justices SS Nijjar and J Chelameswar.
A positive outcome for Balwa, who is accused of paying bribes under the guise of corporate loans during former telecom minister A Raja's tenure, could have had far-reaching implications for all accused. There are more than 20 discharge petitions pending in the high court.
The proceedings in the court were marked by high drama with politician Subramanian Swamy demanding that he be heard before any interim orders were passed, and lawyer Prashant Bhushan raising his voice at a suggestion by the Chief Justice asking him to get an authorisation from the Centre of Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), a non-governmental organisation that he represents.
"Get an authorisation," the Chief Justice kept telling Bhushan. This caused the lawyer and anti-corruption activist to explode in anger.
"The CPIL is a registered society and has been filing PILs since years. We are witnessing extraordinary things in this court," Bhushan said of the CJI's demand that he show authorisation from the NGO to show he was asked to file the case. Lawyer Kamini Jaiswal came to Bhushan's aid, saying that she was CPIL's general secretary and had authorised him. Bhushan also contested Balwa's plea saying that another bench was already hearing the case.
Balwa's lawyer Ram Jethmalani said that the matter involved important issues of public interest, noting that all he was asking for was a recall of two orders, referring to the April 11 and November 9 orders of Justices Singhvi and Radhakrishnan. The first order had asked all other courts to refrain from taking up 2G related cases and the second had stayed the HC's right to deal with applications seeking discharge from the case or quashing of charges.
The CBI, which is investigating the 2G case, also opposed Balwa's plea. CBI counsel KK Venugopal said that larger or smaller benches cannot quash orders of another bench, citing an earlier Supreme Court judgement.
"Each bench is autonomous and decides according to the Constitution. If every bench is allowed to override the rulings of every other bench, it will end in chaos," he said.
An affected party cannot have recourse to any other forum, he said. "Otherwise there will always be an uncertainty hanging over every judgement."
But Jethmalani claimed that the 2G bench had passed the order staying the high court's hand without hearing Balwa or the other affected parties. "This court can recall that order without looking at its merits," he said, adding that a court should stop monitoring a case once chargesheets are filed.
"The law relating to monitoring has become an unruly horse," he said.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/657-2g-spectrum-case-chief-justice-refers-shahid-balwa%E2%80%99s-plea-to-special-bench.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/657-2g-spectrum-case-chief-justice-refers-shahid-balwa%E2%80%99s-plea-to-special-bench.html

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