New Delhi:
Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, will not leave jail today. The judge deciding on her bail has dismissed her bail application.
Kanimozhi met with her mother, husband and 11-year-old son at the Delhi court this morning, before she was taken inside to hear about whether she can leave jail after more than five months in prison.
The Rajya Sabha MP reached Patiala House from Tihar Jail earlier this morning to hear Judge OP Saini's verdict on her bail application. She has been charged with helping former Telecom Minister A Raja, also from her party, of accepting a 214-crore kickback. The Rajya Sabha MP has been in jail since May 20.
In court, top leaders of her party like actor-politician Khushboo and TR Baalu were waiting to hear the judge's decision. Her half-brother MK Stalin is in Delhi too; DMK sources said he was hoping to meet her because the party believed she was likely to get bail today.
Kanimozhi's arrest has resulted in political drama in Delhi and Chennai. The alliance between her father and the Congress has been tested by the accusations levelled against her by the CBI, and the agency's earlier opposition to her bail. This time around, however - her fourth attempt at bail - the CBI had said in court that it does not object to her leaving jail.
While asking for bail, Kanimozhi's lawyers have said that Indian law (Section 437 of the Criminal Procedure Code) allows bail for those "under the age of 16, or (if the prisoner) is a woman, or is sick, or infirm." They have also said in court that because the CBI has collected all relevant documents in her case and nobody has testified against her, there is no question of her tampering with evidence or trying to influence witnesses.
The CBI has arrested 14 people for the telecom scam that was allegedly crafted by another DMK leader, A Raja, when he was Telecom Minister. Kanimozhi stands accused of helping him to accept a Rs. 214-crore kickback. Of the 14 people in jail, Mr Raja alone has not applied for bail. He says he will leave Tihar Jail only after proving that the swindle he is accused of is fictitious.
Of the eight people whose bail was being decided today, the CBI had not opposed the bail for five - Kanimozhi, Kalaignar TV MD Sharath Kumar, Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Asif Balwa and Rajeev Agarwal and Bollywood producer Karim Morani.
The investigating agency has asked the court not to grant bail to former Telecom Minister A Raja's former private secretary RK Chandolia; Group MD, Reliance-ADAG, Gautam Doshi; Senior Vice President, Reliance-ADAG, Surendra Pipara; Senior Vice President, Reliance-ADAG, Hari Nair; Former MD, Unitech Wireless Sanjay Chandra; Promoter and MD, DB Realty and Swan Telecom Vinod Goenka and Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa.
The premise of the telecom scam is that in 2008, when he was Telecom Minister, Mr Raja twisted rules and policy to grant mobile network licenses and spectrum to companies who were not eligible. In one case - that of Swan Telecom, the CBI says it has evidence of a kickback paid to Mr Raja. The money - Rs. 214 crore - was deposited with a TV channel in Chennai which is co-owned by Kanimozhi and her stepmother. Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, was arrested on May 20.
Kanimozhi has tried three times to get bail. The last time her case went to the Supreme Court in June, she was advised to wait till the charges were framed against her, after which the Supreme Court said she could apply for bail again in Judge Saini's court.
That happened in October. Judge Saini accepted all charges leveled by the CBI against all 14 people arrested so far. The other three accused in the case are companies - Reliance Telecom, Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom. Mr Raja, who was arrested in February, has been charged with criminal breach of trust by a public servant. So has former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura. The others have been accused of criminal conspiracy in trying to bribe a public servant. The charge comes with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Other charges range from cheating to forgery.
Kanimozhi's lawyers have said that she served only briefly as a Director of Kalaignar TV, the channel that allegedly served as a front for Mr Raja's kickback; that the money was in any case a loan that was returned to Swan with interest, and that since the CBI has collected all relevant documents and no witness has testified against her, she can neither tamper with evidence nor try to influence testimony. In court, however, the CBI has described Kanimozhi as "the active brain" behind Kalaignar TV.
Kanimozhi's five month stay in jail has been a severe stress for the DMK's partnership with the Congress. With his 16 Lok Sabha MPs, Mr Karunanidhi has served as a senior partner of the UPA coalition at the Centre. During a visit to Delhi last month, he said that, "I don't know whether there is any political background to the delay in bail for Kanimozhi". His meetings with Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister during that visit suggested an effort on both sides to ease the tension caused by Kanimozhi's arrest.
The Supreme Court asked the CBI on Monday why it has chosen to differentiate between the 14 people arrested so far - on October 24, the agency told Judge Saini that it had no objections to bail for Kanimozhi and four others; but it has opposed the bail for Unitech Wireless' Managing Director Sanjay Chandra, Swan Telecom's Director Vinod Goenka and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group's executives Hari Nair, Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara. The CBI responded that it is upto Judge Saini to now decide who gets bail.