(A special court acquitted all the accused in the 2G 'scam' case that was credited with bringing the UPA government down. This profile of Special Judge OP Saini, who pronounced the verdict, has been republished from The Quint’s archives in light of the fresh developments.)
It’s a lesser known fact that Om Prakash Saini, the Special CBI judge who was chosen exclusively to handle the 2G trial, began his career as a sub-inspector (SI) in the Delhi Police. Hailing from Haryana, Saini sat for the judicial magistrate examination after six years in the police service. Interestingly, he alone was selected that year, among all the others who sat for the examination.
Saini was handpicked to undertake all the trials after the Supreme Court, in 2011, asked the government to set up a special court to hear the 2G cases.
In the courts, Saini has a reputation of being a judge who is willing to roll up his sleeves and get the job done with a minimum of fuss.
Also Read: 2G Spectrum Case: A Timeline of Major Events
This has led to admiration from many in the legal fraternity. Some laud what they term his firm but fair attitude; others find his approach hard-nosed, sometimes excessively so.
An example of how this played out was in a November 2011 order, when everyone expected Saini to grant bail to Kanimozhi, the daughter of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi. Saini shocked everyone by dismissing it. The bail plea was on the grounds that Kanimozhi was a woman, and had been in jail for several months already. But Saini argued that she was an influential politician, and he could not risk witnesses getting intimidated if she was released.
This seemed fair enough, though there was technically sufficient legal precedent for her to argue for bail in the circumstances.
Yet another example from the 2G case when his actions divided opinion was his decision to summon three telecom heads – Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel, Asim Ghosh of Hutchison Max and Ravi Ruia of Sterling Cellular. They were summoned as accused in the case under the rarely-used section 319 CrPC, even though the CBI had given all three a clean chit.
He certainly had the power to do so, but the summons were subsequently quashed by the Supreme Court, which found that the relevant legal principle used to summon them had been incorrectly applied.
Key Cases Before 2G
Before the 2G cases came his way, Saini had heard key corruption and graft cases, including the National Aluminum Company Limited (NALCO) bribery scam case and the controversial Commonwealth Games scam case. He incarcerated Suresh Kalmadi's key aides, Lalit Bhanot, VK Verma, KUK Reddy and others.
One of his biggest cases, before he started exclusively hearing the 2G cases, was the Red Fort shootout, where a few terrorists ambushed an army camp stationed at the fort, and killed three jawans. Saini gave the death sentence to Mohammad Arif, the key accused, and life imprisonment to six other accomplices.
The Red Fort case came Saini's way after the previous judge who was hearing it, MS Sabharwal, retired in 2002. Post Sabharwal's retirement, at least two judges turned down the case as it was too complicated, according to an India Today report. At the time, there were five related cases and 300 witnesses.
Whichever camp you fall into, Saini’s court has always been a favourite among interns to observe proceedings, or for lawyers with a bit of time to kill, because of his willingness to speak his mind, regardless of the status of who is in the dock.
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