Court hints at pressure on CBI in 2G case

The clear verdict in the 2G Spectrum case does not just exonerate all the accused - it exposes the rot within the investigating agencies and the deceitfulness of the prosecuting lawyers.

Special Judge OP Saini has laid bare the bias and ineptitude of the CBI and the ED and the deliberate distortion resorted to by the Public Prosecutor. Several passages in his judgment on three related but separate cases -- are devoted to nailing lies, evasions, subterfuges, doctored evidence and tutored witnesses.
It was political skulduggery and media hype at its worst, aimed at defaming the UPA government, destroying reputations and altering the history of Indian politics. But the law has finally taken its logical course and the Judge has not hesitated in calling a spade a spade. All 19 accused, including A Raja and Kanimozhi, have been given a clean chit and it is now the turn of the persecutors and false witnesses to face the music.
Charge after charge has been demolished through close judicial scrutiny and the flow of stern reprimand from the Bench is virtually unending. Here is a sampling of the startling observations and conclusions that Judge Saini arrived at and felt it necessary put down in black and white in his judgment:

Excerpts from the 2G judgment of the Special Court

• High profile nature of a case cannot be used as a ground for holding people guilty without legal evidence.
• Lack of commercial prudence in the execution of documents cannot be used as a ruse to hold people guilty of corruption.
• The Prosecution cannot absolve itself of its burden to prove its case by piggy-riding on the so-called high magnitude of the case and media hype.
• The trope of high magnitude of crime does not work at the final stage of the case.
• Mere suspicion, however strong or probable it may be, is no effective substitute for the legal proof required to substantiate the charge of commission of a crime.
• There is no evidence at all showing commission of offence of criminal breach of trust by any of the accused.
• There is absolutely no evidence of any outside interference. There is no evidence of any top-down imposition by Sh A Raja or anyone else.
• An outstanding feature of the case is that the more important a witness was, the more delayed was his examination. It is surprising as to how witnesses became goldmine of information at the last stage of investigation, though they were available to the investigating agency at the earliest possible opportunity after registration of the case.
• The unwarranted delay in the examination of important witnesses coupled with the type of hype around the case indicates that the witnesses may be under pressure or were even coerced to toe the prosecution line.
• There is a cloud about fairness of investigation. It is the duty of the investigating officer to conduct the investigation avoiding any kind of mischief and harassment to any of the accused.
• A high responsibility lies upon the investigating agency not to conduct an investigation in tainted and unfair manner. This circumstance, looming large in the background, inevitably leads to the conclusion, that the prosecution story was conceived and constructed after a good deal of deliberation and delay in a shady setting, highly redolent of doubt and suspicion.
• On registration of the case, for more than a year, almost nothing was done in the case and then suddenly all the witnesses were recorded one after the another as if the investigators had all of a sudden gained all the knowledge of the case and the witnesses had also become source of all the information.
• The prosecution kept filing documents almost till the conclusion of trial; Large number of documents were filed more than a dozen times on the ground that they were missed out due to inadvertence.
• Filing of documents has been repeatedly allowed on the plea of crime being of a grave magnitude in which officers are prone to inadvertence.
• In the last, the prosecution again filed an application dated 15.04.2015 for filing certain documents. However, to the surprise of the court, the application was accompanied by documents running into about 15,000 pages.The sheer number of documents filed in the case shows that the idea of the prosecution was to bury this Court under the weight of documents.
• This puts a question mark on the truthfulness of the prosecution and lends credence to the theory of pressure on the witnesses. *
• This theory of pressure is further corroborated by the conduct exhibited by witnesses in the witness-box.
• During their deposition, not only did they depose contrary to official record but also kept fumbling for answers and gave evasive replies skirting around the real issue. This is clear from perusal of their testimony.
• They kept beating about the bush and never came to the bush.
• Prosecution was also wary of putting straight questions to them apprehending they may blurt out anything and was satisfied just with proving the documents by getting the handwriting or signatures identified.