In a curious development, Justice AR Dave of Supreme Court on Thursday became the second judge in four days to recuse himself from the Bench hearing the petitions of Bharti Cellular ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia in 2G spectrum case in 2002.
Without assigning any reason, Justice Dave, who was part of the Bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, opted out of hearing the pleas of Mittal and Ruia challenging the summons issued by the trial court to them in the case.
The CJI said that a new Bench will be constituted to hear the matter, and, in the meantime, the proceedings pending before the trial court will remain “postponed” for another week. Earlier, the bench had asked the trial court to postpone its hearing till April 22.
During the previous hearing on April 15, Justice Vikramajit Sen, who was one of the members of the three judge bench headed by the CJI, had also recused himself from hearing the matter without giving any reason.
During the last hearing, the CBI had said that the matter should be referred to another bench headed by justice G S Singhvi, which has been monitoring the development into the investigation into the 2G spectrum scam and cases arising out of its probe.
The Bench headed by justice Singhvi had ordered the CBI probe into the allocation of 2G spectrum during the regime of A Raja as telecom minister and additional spectrum issued in 2002 during the NDA regime when late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister.
Mittal and Ruia had appeared before the trial court on April 16 in pursuance to the apex court’s earlier order and had also furnished personal bonds. Special CBI Judge O P had Saini had accepted their bonds and had posted the matter for further proceedings on April 22.
While summoning Mittal, Asim Ghosh, then MD of Hutchison Max Telecom Pvt ltd and Ruia, then a Director in Sterling Cellular ltd, the special CBI court had said that they were “prima facie in control of affairs” of their companies, named in the chargesheet by CBI in the case. The CBI had chargsheeted only former telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh and different telecom companies.
But the Special Court directed to CBI to find the persons behind the companies , who engaged with Ghosh in alleged conspiracy in the allotment of additional spectrum. The notice to Asim Ghosh, is still under process, as he now lives in Canada.