beyondbrics

A sweltering low-ceilinged court room in New Delhi is where a court room battle surrounding one of the worst corruption cases in India’s post-independence history began on Wednesday.

The appearance of Andimuthu Raja (pictured), a former cabinet minister, and Shahid Balwa, a Mumbai-based billionaire, in the unprepossessing public court is a significant moment in India’s fight with corruption, regardless of the case’s outcome.

High-level prosecutions for suspected corruption are rare in the world’s largest democracy, where senior politicians and leading businesspeople wield considerable power and often dodge the law.

Raja and Balwa, and a clutch of other company executives and bureaucrats, are suspected of rigging the award of telecoms licences three years ago. All deny wrongdoing.

On Wednesday, the white-panelled court room in a far corner of the Patiala House complex was packed to bursting with lawyers in white formal collars and black jackets. About two hundred people jammed into a small room, more used to deciding smaller cases rather than one that according to an official audit could have lost $39bn in potential revenues from the state.

So full was the court room that legal counsel and the accused jostled with the crowd to squeeze through to the bench of Justice O.P. Saina, an additional district sessions judge and the man tasked by the Supreme Court to preside over a special court for the telecoms trial.

Outside legal documents were handed around and bundled for storage in dozens of agricultural sacks previously used to ship almonds. The court room had little security in spite of the case being sensitive enough to put witnesses at risk and of its potential embarrassment to the Congress party-led government. A handful of Delhi policemen with rifles strung over their shoulders stood in the corridor. Some were slumped in plastic chairs, already defeated by the heat.

Inside the court, the accused, who are in judicial custody in Delhi’s Tihar jail, looked relaxed and ordinary outside their ministries and corporate offices. Raja, wearing an open collared blue shirt, was smiling. Near him, the youthful and athletic-looking Balwa wore a grey T-shirt. One bystander commented that he looked as if he was dressed to go to a movie.

India’s judiciary is notorious for being slow moving. Tuesday’s session lasted an hour and a half and was cut short by an adjournment related to an application for bail by the defendants. The court resumes on Friday aiming to take up the 80,000 page charge sheet prepared by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Auguries of timelessness, however, were already apparent in court. On the judge’s desk was a pen-stand showing September and Friday as the month and day. Alongside his name plaque on the court door was a poster plastered by an advocate wishing passers-by “Happy New Year”.

Some among the crowd were bracing for the long haul. Vinod Kumar Budhiraja, a lawyer from Mumbai, said the case would take at least two years. Another said Raja was relaxed because he knew the power of his political backers outside the courtroom.

“So far, it’s status quo,” said an associate of Raja, who claimed to be from the Intelligence Bureau.

India’s anti-corruption campaigners will be hoping the status quo changes in the days ahead.

Related reading:
Former minister arrested in India probe, FT
India telecoms 1: horse bolts, new laws to follow, beyondbrics
Indian telecoms 2: two and a half cheers for Sibal, beyondbrics
Singh calls for clean-up of political funding, FT
Tata’s testimony is a poignant episode, FT
Rahul Gandhi urges change amid graft fury, FT