Telecom companies Reliance Telecom Ltd, Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless charged with criminal conspiracy and abetment in the case.
Special CBI judge O P Saini, after hearing day-to-day arguments on behalf of accused and the CBI for nearly two months, had reserved his orders on 14 October.
The trial of the accused would begin after the court pronounces its order on framing of charges in the case. They have been charged for various offences of the IPC dealing with criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating. Besides these, Raja and other public servants have been charged with misuse of official position punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The court would also decide as to whether the additional charges of criminal breach of trust, invoked by CBI during the arguments on charges, would be slapped the accused. The new charge entails a sentence of life term on conviction.
Besides Raja and Kanimozhi, other accused in the case include the minister's former private secretary RK Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, DMK-run Kalaignar TV's MD Sharad Kumar, Bollywood filmmaker Karim Morani and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group's executives Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.
Besides telecom firms Reliance Telecom Ltd, Swan Telecom and Unitech (Tamilnadu) Wireless Ltd, the other accused in the case include Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Usman Balwa, Asif Balwa and Rajeev Agarwal, Unitech Ltd's MD Sanjay Chandra and DB Realty MD Vinod Goenka.
The CBI, in its first charge sheet filed on 2 April, had accused Raja and others of causing a huge loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer by allocating spectrum to ineligible operators as per a criminal conspiracy among themselves.
On the other hand, all the accused including Raja had vehemently opposed the framing of charges and the plea of CBI that they caused a loss to the state in the grant of spectrum licenses.
Raja, during the arguments, sought to drag names of the Prime Minister and then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the case saying they were kept apprised about the developments in the 2G spectrum allocation.
A few months ago, Raja's counsel Sushil Kumar told the court that 2G spectrum transactions were approved by then Finance Minister Chidambaram in the presence of the Prime Minister.
'Telenor buying a stake in Unitech Wireless and Etisalat buying a stake in DB Realty -- the finance minister approved it in the presence of the prime minister,' the Counsel said.
'Let the PM deny it,' counsel told the judge, referring to the particular time in 2007-08 when Chidambaram was Finance Minister. 'If policies pursued by me were wrong, then all former telecom ministers since 1993 should also be in jail with me,' he added.
'To give the licence without auction was my obligation. I acted as per the Union Cabinet's decision and the finance minister was known to it. If I would have not done that, I should have been prosecuted but I only did my duties,' Raja's counsel said, pointing that no auction was done in allotting 2G licences.
