CBI gets five-day custody of Raja

Agency expects more names to come out during interrogation

There was a minor stampede outside Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) headquarters on Thursday afternoon when former telecom minister A Raja was taken out of block number 4 of the agency's headquarters to be produced in a court at Patiala House complex.


Former Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja, arrested in connection with
2G spectrum allocation scam, being produced at Patiala House court in
New Delhi. Pic/Imtiyaz Khan

Photographers and cameramen rushed towards the minister to take a closer shot of him and in the ensuing pushing and jostling, a photographer suffered minor injuries.

As CBI had anticipated a huge rush of mediapersons and others at the court complex, they had asked the local police to cordon off the entire area. The cops had barricaded the road from which Raja was to be brought to the court.

Wearing a grey safari suit, Raja, greeted the judge, raising his folded hands over his head and remained composed during the half-an-hour-long hearing. The court sent Raja to the CBI custody for five days. The
allegations against the accused (Raja, Siddharth Behura and R K Chandolia) are that they had allotted the Unified Access Service Licences (UASL) in violation of rules and procedure, causing a loss estimated to be Rs 22,000 crore to the state exchequer.

"Considering the nature of the allegations, and gravity of offences and consequent need of interrogation of accused in the light of the allegations, I am satisfied that the prayer for police custody remand is justified," Special CBI Judge O P Saini said.u00a0 The 47-year-old DMK leader, former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura and
Raja's former personal secretary R K Chandolia, were produced around 2 pm in the packed courtroom. The CBI sources said that they are hopeful to get some vital information from interrogation of Raja and others in the next five days.

"We will make them confront each other and the documents which we had obtained to know more about the scam," the cops said.u00a0 Sources also said that they suspect more namesu00a0--- probably of someone senior to Rajau00a0--- might surface during the interrogation.