New Delhi: In a curious development, Justice AR Dave of Supreme Court on Thursday became the second judge in four days to recuse himself from the bench hearing the petitions of Bharti Cellular Ltd CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia in a graft case related to allocation of additional 2G spectrum in 2002.
Without assigning any reason, Justice Dave, who was part of the bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, opted out of hearing the pleas of Mittal and Ruia challenging the summons issued to them in the case.
The CJI said that a new bench will be constituted to hear the matter and in the meantime, the proceedings pending before the trial court will remain "postponed" for another week. Earlier, the bench had asked the trial court to postpone its hearing till April 22.
During the previous hearing on April 15, Justice Vikramajit Sen, who was one of the members of the three judge bench headed by the CJI, had also recused himself from hearing the matter without giving any reason. During the last hearing, the CBI had said that the matter should be referred to another bench headed by justice GS Singhvi, which has been monitoring the development into the investigation into the 2G spectrum scam and cases arising out of its probe.
The bench headed by justice Singhvi had ordered the CBI probe into the allocation of 2G spectrum during the regime of A Raja as telecom minister and additional spectrum issued in 2002 during the NDA regime when late Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister.
Mittal and Ruia had appeared before the trial court on April 16 in pursuance to the apex court's earlier order and had also furnished personal bonds. Special CBI Judge OP had Saini had accepted their bonds and had posted the matter for further proceedings on April 22.
The apex court said on Thursday that the same order will continue in the trial court.
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