Ravi Ruia, three others skip court again

NEW DELHI, INDIA: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here on Saturday exempted from personal appearance corporate honcho Ravi Ruia of the Essar group and three others from hearing of the 2G case.

The matter has been listed for March 31.

The defence counsel of Ravi Ruia, Anshuman Ruia, Loop Telecom promoters I.P. Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan, moved an application for exemption in the court of special CBI judge O.P. Saini.

The court granted exemption to all four accused for Saturday and directed them to appear in person on the next date of hearing saying it would be better in their interest to appear in the court.

"People don't follow my advice and later they suffer," said special CBI judge Saini.

The counsel on Saturday told the court that the matter regarding the jurisdiction of this court is pending before the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, another accused in the case Vikas Saraf of the Essar group appeared in the court. He has not been arrested but issued summons. He had moved his bail application on Feb 22. The CBI told the court that it will reply to the bail application of Saraf after the four other accused move their bail applications.

The third set of charges filed by the CBI in the 2G case alleged that the Essar Group used Loop as a front to acquire telecom licences in 2008. Essar, which already had a 33 per cent stake in Vodafone, held substantial equity in Loop and thus violated telecom licence norms, the chargesheet said.

According to the government auditor, the 2G spectrum allocation case, allegedly masterminded by former telecom minister A. Raja, pertained to biased distribution of mobile airwaves and operating licences, in lieu of kickbacks, to telecom firms that could have cost the treasury up to Rs.1.76 lakh crore in lost revenue.