7 trunkloads of charges

Armed with the first chargesheet in the 2G scam, which ran -into a whopping 80,000 pages, CBI officials marched into a chaotic courtroom.

Armed with the first chargesheet in the 2G scam, which ran -into a whopping 80,000 pages, CBI officials marched into a chaotic courtroom.

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The officials got the chargesheet securely inside seven aluminum trunks and placed them one over the other before CBI special judge OP Saini.

A Raja wore a shell-shocked look on the arrival of chargesheet. He stared speechlessly at the CBI counsel — who leveled charges of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and corruption against him. Promoter and director of Swan Telecom Shahid Balwa, said to be Indian’s youngest billionaire, was also caught in a state of shock.

When the CBI judge called out his name to check his availability, he raised his hands. His family members at the back of the courtroom watched the proceedings in silence.

The CBI officials, on the other hand, were pictures of confidence. The agency’s senior public prosecutor AK Singh rushed to the court dais with a thick bundle of a part of the chargesheet. He claimed the agency has secured 654 types of documentary evidence in addition to 125 witnesses statement in what could be India’s largest scam.

Meanwhile, a battery of CBI officials was diligently guarding the trunks inside the courtroom.

Family members of former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura and Raja’s former secretary RK Chandolia were also present in the courtroom. A few members of the families broke down when the CBI filed its chargesheet.

The CBI special judge, on his part, kept a smile going from the beginning of the trial.

The smile lingered even as he said he had taken the cognizance on the chargesheet.

The court has fixed April 13 as the next hearing for the matter and summoned five more accused in the scam.