2G case: Court allows A Raja to visit Tamil Nadu

A Raja, former telecom minister and key accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, was on Friday allowed by a Delhi court to visit Tamil Nadu for three days.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini allowed the plea of the DMK MP to visit Tamil Nadu after CBI prosecutor did not object to it.

"Accused Raja had filed an application seeking permission to visit Tamil Nadu from today evening to Monday (August 20) night. Senior PP (of the CBI) has no objection to the prayer. Since the matter has already been listed on August 21, prayer is allowed," the judge said.

Raja, along with others, including DMK MP Kanimozhi, has been facing trial in the case for the offences of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and corruption besides criminal breach of trust that entails a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

During the proceedings, the court continued recording of statement of prosecution witness A K Srivastava, who had retired as the deputy director general (DDG) (Access Service) from the Department of Telecom (DoT).

Srivastava was shown a DoT file, containing a note dealing with a November 22, 2007 letter written by the then finance secretary Dr D Subba Rao to the then telecom secretary D S Mathur.

The witness deposed that in the November 22, 2007 letter, Rao had expressed his concern on "the rates of 2001 being followed in 2007" and had also asked the DoT to revert to him about the same.

Srivastava, whose recording of statement would continue on August 21, said that the then DoT official Nitin Jain had prepared a draft reply to be sent to the finance secretary but the said draft reply is not in the file shown to him.

He said DoT had sent a reply to Rao through a November 29, 2007 letter and the draft of the said letter was prepared in the office of the telecom secretary.