A court here today fined corporate honchos Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, accused in 2G spectrum allocation scam, for filing "frivolous" pleas seeking to visit Mumbai for business purpose saying the "government machinery cannot be made subservient to the money power of the accused to serve their business."

Balwa and Goenka had urged the court that they be allowed to go to Mumbai to attend the extraordinary general meeting of Etisalat DB, a joint venture firm of DB Realty group and UAE's Etisalat, on June 15.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini dismissed their pleas and imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 saying the "government machinery cannot be made subservient to the money power of the accused to serve their business."

Balwa and Goenka had sought the court's permission also to visit Mumbai to appear before the Income Tax authorities in relation to a matter pertaining to Etisalat DB.

"The state machinery cannot be made subservient to the money power of the accsued persons to serve their business interest as attending an extra ordinary general meeting (EGM) or appearing before Income Tax authorities pertain to their business work," the court said.

The judge said the accused cannot claim they should be allowed to attend EGM of their company or to attend the office of any other authority in connection with their business, at a far away place, when the allegations against them are serious.

"This is all the more important in a case in which the applicants (Balwa and Goenka) are accused of subverting state policy in connivance with the Minister of Communication and IT and high rank public servants.
"Any such step of allowing the accused to foot the bill of the state machinery for facilitating their travel outside the jurisdiction of this court for their business purposes would bring the public administration and court in disrepute and public ridicule," the court said.

While dismissing their pleas, the judge said this is not even a case of extreme emergency to justify the court's permission for their Mumbai visit.

Regarding permission to both the accused to appear before the Income Tax department in Mumbai, the court said the IT authorities are always at liberty to examine them in jail as per law.

The court said the applications have been filed with a view to wasting the valuable time of the court and deserved to be dismissed with a heavy cost.

"However, as far as cost is concerned, I am inclined to take a little lenient view in the hope that accused shall improve in future and desist from filing such frivolous applications.

"All the three applications are dismissed subject to nominal cost of Rs 15,000," the judge said.

"You are not letting me to do work. Have you (defence counsel) decided that you would not let the 'judge sahab' do work? You are filing applications one after another," the court said while an advocate for one of the accused in the case came up to move another application.