ME News Bureau: New Delhi: The New Delhi based Patiala House Court has acquitted all 19 accused, including A Raja, former telecom minister; and MK Kanimozhi, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP, in the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) money laundering case linked to the 2G scam.
The Special Judge OP Saini also acquitted Sharad Kumar, Shahid Balwa, Karim Morani, Vinod Goenka, Asif Balwa, Rajiv Aggarwal, and P Amirtham, the other accused in the case.
Vijay Aggarwal, the lawyer of Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa, Vinod Goenka and others, stated, “The court said that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove any of its charge. Thus all the accused are acquitted.”
The acquitted persons have to furnish a bail bond of Rs 5 lakhs each, to confirm their presence in a higher appellate court if at all the judgment is challenged.
DMK leader Durai Murugan welcomed this verdict as a victor and stated, “Political conspiracies were hatched against us but all have been blown away now.” Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, thanked “everyone who stood by me”.
Responding to the verdict, P Chidambaram, senior Congress leader, commented, “Allegation of a major scam involving the highest levels of Government was never true, was not correct and that has been established today”.
In its chargesheet, the ED had also mentioned Dayalu Ammal, Karunanidhi's wife, as an accused, alleging that a payment of Rs 200 crore was made by Swan Telecom (P) Ltd (STPL) promoters to the DMK-run Kalaignar TV.
In its ultimate report, the ED had mentioned 10 persons and nine companies as accused and named them in the charge sheet for the offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
In addition to Kalaignar TV, the other companies accused were Mystical Construction (P) Ltd (earlier known as Nihar Constructions (P) Ltd), STPL (now Etisalat DB Telecom (P) Ltd), Conwood Construction & Developers (P) Ltd Kusegaon Realty (P) Ltd, Cineyug Media & Entertainment (P) Ltd, Dynamix Realty, Eversmile Construction Company (P) Ltd, and DB Realty Ltd
