New Delhi, Sep 5 (IANS) The Supreme Court was told Monday that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said that there was no loss to the exchequer in the allocation of 2G spectrum and the accused in judicial custody were entitled to bail.


The observation came during the arguments on bail for Sanjay Chandra of Unitech and Vinod Goenka of DB Reality, who are in judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the 2G scandal.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for accused, told the bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice H.L. Dattu that his clients were being denied bail and suffering incarceration only on the ground that the public exchequer suffered loss to the tune of Rs.30,000 crore.

The TRAI has given its opinion in response to a query by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the pricing issue in the allocation of 2G spectrum.

As Jethmalani told the court that it has been reported in newspapers that the TRAI has opined that there was no loss in the allocation of 2G spectrum, Additional Solicitor General Harin Rawal told the court that they have written to the regulatory authority that it (CBI) could not agree that there was no loss to the government.

The court asked Rawal if newspaper reports attributed to the TRAI that there was no loss were correct. Rawal said that there were inter-departmental communication and the investigating agency had reverted to the TRAI, disagreeing with its findings.

When Rawal said the TRAI opinion was not a public document, he was queried by the judges how it reached the media.

The court then told Jethmalani that he could continue on the basis of newspaper reports.

Resuming his arguments, Jethmalani told the court that the entire case was that the government wanted to increase the entry fee (for 2G licences) as the one decided in 2001 was low. And there was cheating and conspiracy in frustrating this move by the government.

The senior counsel, referring to the opinion of the TRAI, said that if there was no loss then where was the question of cheating and conspiracy. "There was no reason for hiding the (TRAI) report from us."

Pressing for bail for accused, the senior counsel told the court that grant of bail was a rule and its denial an exception.