Court: Can’t flout law to bring in pvt investment

Framing charges against Swan Telecom, Unitech Wireless and Reliance Telecom and their executives in the 2G scam, the CBI court said the law cannot be tweaked in the name of bringing private investment.

Framing charges against Swan Telecom, Unitech Wireless and Reliance Telecom and their executives in the 2G scam, the CBI court said the law cannot be tweaked in the name of bringing private investment.

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Rejecting the argument of former telecom minister A Raja that the telecom policy followed by him resulted in a huge investment in the private sector, and made mobile phone facility affordable to the common man, special CBI Judge OP Saini said, “Shrinkage or flight of investment is no defence in criminal law.”

“The supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law have to be maintained, and the same cannot be allowed to be compromised in the garb of fresh investment. Affordability of mobile phones does not mean that a public servant would start subverting the law and fill their own pockets by taking bribes,” the court said.

“One cannot claim to achieve the objectives of a policy, however laudable the same may be, in an illegal manner. The same is the case for seeking private investment, domestic as well as foreign. For seeking investment to implement the policy of the government, or during such investment by private players, one cannot be allowed to violate constitutional and statutory norms,” said the judge.

“The investment has to be as per the law of the country, and in this process laws cannot be allowed to be flouted by subverting norms and resorting to payment or acceptance of bribes,” the court observed.