Charge sheet against A Raja by 31st March

Charge sheets will be filed against former telecom minister A Raja and two companies by 31st March for their alleged involvement in the 2G spectrum allocation case, the CBI told the Supreme Court, which asked the agency to appoint a suitable senior advocate as special public prosecutor in the trial. In its latest status report filed in a sealed envelope before a bench of justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly, the CBI submitted that many new facts have come out during the probe into the scam. "The main charge sheet will be filed against A Raja and two companies by 31st March. This is only the beginning and many people and companies would also be chargesheeted later on," senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the investigating agency, said. Venugopal told the court that many people, including the CEO of a telecom company, have been examined by the agency and Letters Rogatory have been sent to some countries for probing the money trail. He said some progress had been made in case of Mauritius.

He submitted that the agency is also probing a land deal in Chennai involving Tatas and the DMK party. The court, while going through the status report, referred to a company and asked, "Is it the same company which has association with Vodafone and (it) was also mentioned in the ED report?" To that, Venugopal replied, "Yes". The court, in its order, directed the investigating agency to place before it transcripts of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's telephonic conversation tapped by the IT department on the next date of hearing on 29th March. It also asked the CBI and the ED to place the probe reports before it on that day.