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CBI evidence ‘inadmissible’, say firms
The defence counsels in the 2G scam case on Monday raised ‘doubts’ on the admissibility of the evidence produced by the CBI in the case.
As the Assistant vice-president of HDFC Bank, Uday Shahasrabuddhe commenced recording his statement as a prosecution witness in the case, the counsels of the accused started raising objections about the admissibility of the evidence produced by the probe agency.
The Mumbai-based banker was deposing before Special CBI Judge OP Saini to verify documents related to financial transactions allegedly involving Reliance ADA Group Company and Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd which are accused in the case.
The judge, however, refused to entertain the objections at this stage raised by the accused that the account opening form of Swan Telecom Ltd and statements of its account, which the CBI sought to verify from Shahasrabuddhe, were not certified and, therefore, cannot be exhibited as evidence before the court.
The court referred to a Supreme Court judgement saying that, in order to expedite the trial, objections against the evidence produced should be heard only at the stage of final arguments in the case.
“In view of the authoritative pronouncement by the Supreme Court, the final view about the objections will be taken during the final arguments and the exhibition of the documents shall be deemed as tentative. The stands of the parties have been taken on record for future reference. Nothing more is required to be said in view of the law laid down by the Supreme Court,” the judge said after hearing both sides for over two hours on the issue.
The CBI maintained the documents were admissible as they were part of the bank record.
Rebutting the argument of accused that the ‘banker documents’ meant only the documents prepared by bank under the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, the CBI said documents relating to opening of account like address proof, PAN card and Memorandum of Association of the company are part of bank record and the books of the bank.
Whatever these documents are, they have come from the bank where the account was opened and have not come from any other secondary source, Special Prosecutor UU Lalit said. Lalit said the objections were raised by the defence counsel only for the sake of raising it and with these objections the trial will be reduced to a futile exercise.
