On 14 February 2025, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) informed the Delhi High Court that its appeal challenging the acquittal of former Union Telecom Minister A Raja and 16 others in the notorious 2G spectrum allocation case is now ready for hearing.
Sanjay Jain, a senior advocate representing the CBI, requested Justice Vikas Mahajan to schedule several hearing dates due to the extensive records involved. “I urge the court to allocate a series of hearing dates,” Jain said. Acknowledging the request, Justice Mahajan scheduled the next hearing for 18 March 2025.
The 2G spectrum case, once considered one of India’s largest corruption scandals, took a dramatic turn in December 2017 when a special CBI court acquitted Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, and 15 others in both CBI and Enforcement Directorate cases related to the alleged scam.
The CBI, which had estimated a massive loss of ₹30,984 crore to the public exchequer due to manipulated 2G license allocations in 2008, filed an appeal against the acquittals in the Delhi High Court in March 2018. The agency contended that the allocation process, conducted on a first-come-first-served basis, was manipulated to benefit certain companies. The Supreme Court had annulled the licenses in 2012, citing procedural irregularities.
In March 2024, the High Court admitted the CBI’s appeal, highlighting “contradictions” in the trial court’s judgment that required further legal examination.
During the height of the 2G spectrum case, a series of leaked tapes came to light, including conversations between DMK Member of Parliament A. Raja and former Intelligence Chief Jaffar Sait, as well as phone calls between political lobbyist Niira Radia and A. Raja. These conversations were recorded by the Indian Income Tax Department in 2008-09. In 2010, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) revealed they had obtained 5,851 recordings of Radia’s phone calls, some of which revealed her attempts to broker deals linked to the 2G spectrum sale. However, in 2017, a special CBI court acquitted Raja and others. Now, this reexamination of evidence has reopened the case, shedding light on the true scale of the 2G scandal, which continues to cause political headache for the DMK.
(With inputs from TNIE)
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