Delhi High Court will today hear Kanimozhi's bail plea

Tuesday 24 May 2011: The Delhi High Court will today hear the bail plea of DMK MP Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV chief Sharad Kumar, both of whom are currently lodged in Tihar Jail following arrest in the 2G spectrum scam case.

The duo had moved the High Court for bail yesterday. A special CBI court had last week arrested their bail plea and ordered “forthwith” arrest. Counsel for Kanimozhi, daughter of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, and Sharad Kumar had yesterday said: “We have filed the bail application of Kanimozhi and Kumar before the Delhi High Court.”

The application is likely to come up before Justice Ajit Bharihoke. Kanimozhi’s counsel, VG Pragasam and SJ Aristotle, moved the 29-page application which said: “The allegations against the petitioner (Kanimozhi) in the supplementary chargesheet are false, baseless and fabricated. She is innocent and sought to be falsely implicated in the present case.”

“She is a qualified lady, a post-graduate, and presently a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), with effect from July 2007. At present, she is the whip of the DMK in the Rajya Sabha,” said the application.

Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar were taken into judicial custody and sent to Tihar Jail on May 20 after the special CBI court here rejected their bail pleas citing “the magnitude of the crime”.

Kanimozhi’s bail plea said that “she is innocent and has been falsely implicated due to biased media reporting concocted on the basis of conjectures and surmises”. “She is having a school going child to be taken care of. Her husband is employed abroad,” said the application.

“The order of the learned special (CBI) judge whereby the bail application of the petitioner was dismissed is untenable…,” it said. The CBI named Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar as co-conspirators in its April 25 supplementary chargesheet after it traced an illegal money trail of Rs 214 crore in the scam to the Kalaignar TV.

The chargesheet also named Cineyug Film’s Karim Morani as well as Asif Balwa and Rajiv B Aggarwal of Kusegaon Realty. Co-accused and currently in Tihar Jail are former communications minister A Raja, his aide RK Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom and Sanjay Chandra of Unitech Wireless, two officials of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) Gautam Doshi and Hari Nair. A third ADAG official Surendra Pipara has also been named and is undergoing treatment for a heart problem in hospital.

The Delhi HC had yesterday denied bail to Goenka, Chandra, Doshi, Nair and Pipara, and a special CBI trial court dismissed the anticipatory bail application of Morani, asking him to appear before it today.