New Delhi, Aug 20: Sharad Kumar, CEO and MD of DMK-run Kalaignar TV, today told a Delhi court that CBI's allegations were “silly” and and based on assumptions as the so-called bribe of Rs 200 crore to the channel was inter-corporate deposits (ICD) which had no connection with 2G spectrum allocation.
Senior advocate and former Additional Solicitor General Altaf Ahmad, appearing for Kumar, told Special CBI Judge O P Saini that the agency “has not done its home work well” and was making allegations based on “assumptions”.
“Someone (CBI) says that with so less paid-up capital (of Kalaignar Tv), how did a private person give you (Kalaignar TV) Rs 200 crore? Earlier a nationalized bank gave us Rs 100 crore when our paid-up capital was even less, only Rs 5 crore. “It is silly and illiterate to make such allegations.
Paid-up capital has nothing to do with it,” Ahmad said. “They (CBI) want to see every thing from the prism of this FIR. Our record is coherent and consistent. We have banking records, ICD agreements, share subscription agreements and a huge body of documents,” he said.
Seeking discharge from the case, the counsel of Sharad Kumar, who holds 20 per cent stakes in the channel, said there was much time gap between the spectrum allocation and the alleged bribe.
CBI has alleged Kumar was looking after day-to-day affairs of Kalaignar TV in which DMK supremo M Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal, his daughter Kanimozhi also hold 60 and 20 per cent stakes respectively.
CBI, in second charge sheet in the case, named Kumar and Kanimozhi as accused saying that in return for spectrum allocation by former Telecom Minister A Raja, the bribe was received by them as gratification from Shahid Usman Balwa's D B Group companies through a circuitous route. PTI
