2G case update

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to five corporate executives accused in the 2G scam case — Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra, Swan Telecom’s Vinod Goenka, and Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair of Reliance ADAG — raising hopes of the other accused and resurrecting the principle that bail should be the rule and jail an exception. The verdict of Justices G S Singhvi and H L Dattu, which invoked the constitutional principle of “presumption of innocence”, marks the first time that any of the accused has been released on bail, nine months since the CBI took the case to the trial court. Encouraged by the judgment, which is expected to set the “direction” of how judiciary deals with the bail petitions of the other accused, DMK MP Kanimozhi, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, Bollywood producer Karim Morani, Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar and two other accused — Asif Balwa and Rajeev Agarwal — successfully approached the Delhi high court to fast track hearings on their pleas. The high court, which was scheduled to hear their bail pleas on December 1, has agreed to take them up on Thursday. Making an appeal to Justice V K Shali that her bail petition be heard earlier, Kanimozhi cited the SC order to argue that keeping her in jail for more days would be a violation of her fundamental rights. Five others whose bail applications will be decided by the HC on Thursday said charges against them were milder than those facing those who got relief from the SC on Wednesday. While granting bail, the SC bench faulted the trial court and the Delhi high court rulings, saying it saw little merit in keeping the accused behind bars after investigations had been completed and chargesheet filed. Observing that trial in the case was not going to be completed shortly, Justices Singhvi and Dattu said the accused could not be kept behind bars indefinitely.