RTI activist fined, his plea against PM, Maran junked

Times of India: New Delhi: Saturday, June 08, 2013.

A special CBI court on Friday imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on an RTI activist while dismissing his plea seeking lodging of an FIR against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran for their alleged role in the 2G case.

Special CBI judge O P Saini remarked that the petitioner Vivek Garg had filed the application "to seek cheap publicity and to waste the time of the court", and asked him to deposit the fine within seven days.

The court said that Garg's application deserves to be dismissed with heavy penalty as he is not having any evidence in his possession. Garg, in his plea, had sought a direction to the CBI to file a status report on its investigation till date in the case filed against Maran in the 2G scam. He had also sought a direction to the CBI to file a report as to whether the documents, on the basis of which an FIR was lodged against Maran, were the same which he had filed along with his application. He had also said that if the contents of the CBI's FIR are different than his complaint, then the agency be directed by the court to register a fresh or separate FIR against Manmohan Singh, Maran and others.

In his complaint, he had alleged that the Prime Minister and Maran had unlawfully changed and diluted the original Terms of References (ToRs) for vacation and reallocation of spectrum leading to the 2G scam.

The judge, while dismissing the application, said that it was not covered by any provision of law and it appears to be actuated with malafide intentions to waste time of the court and to distract the investigation.

Garg alleged that the CBI is not disclosing whether it had taken him as a co-complainant in the case or whether his complaint and documents prima facie constitute offences on which a separate FIR could be lodged.

The court said there is no need for it to monitor the probe into the case as it is already being monitored by the Supreme Court. It also said that the statements given before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) by former telecom minister A Raja, who is facing trial in the 2G case, and former cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar in connection with the case cannot be relied upon.