Chandolia accuses CBI of pressurising witnesses to depose

New Delhi, Jul 30: RK Chandolia, former private secretary of A Raja, today (Jul 30) alleged before a Delhi court that the CBI pressurised its witnesses to depose against him in the 2G spectrum case after his arrest.

"My arrest on February 2, this year was illegal because at that point of time, no prosecution witnesses had deposed against me and CBI, in a bid to frame me, pressurised them to name me as accused," Chandolia's counsel Vijay Agarwal told Special CBI Judge O P Saini.

Agarwal, who concluded his two-day-long arguments on framing of charges, claimed innocence saying all the persons, who have either been left out or being made witnesses, should have been before the court as accused.

Department of Telecom (DoT) official, R P Agarwal, who recorded his statements on various dates with CBI, did not name Chandolia and suddenly, he named the private secretary in his testimony, recorded after the arrest and this reflected the motive of the agency to implicate him, the counsel said.

"In January and February, the statements (of Agarwal) were recorded and no role was attributed to Chandolia. When his statement was recorded in March, the name of Chandolia surfaced....I am the smallest pie and why they arrested in February when all the incriminating statements were recorded in March."

"CBI first prepared the draft charge sheet and aligned it later after manipulating the statements of witnesses to suit its case," Agarwal said.

Earlier, Chandolia followed the line of defence of the former Telecom Minister and continued with the blame game by seeking to implicate Tata and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and others as accused on the ground that it was they who had felicitated the deal to bring DMK-run Kalaignar TV on Tata Sky bouquet.

PTI