Kanimozhi, the 43-year old married daughter of DMK supremo M Karunanidhi and a Rajya Sabha member, was arrested on Friday in the 2G scam case and sent to the judicial custody in Tihar Jails here after special CBI judge O P Saini dismissed her bail application.

She has been charged with accepting a bribe of Rs 200 crores into her Tamil Kalaignar TV company as kickbacks for the telecom licences granted by her party colleague and then Telecom Minister A Raja who is already cooling heels in Tihar Jails with a score of officials and bosses of the beneficiary telecom companies.

For a flicker of a moment after her bail application was dismissed, Kanimozhi's smile vanished with an expression of sobriety. She, however, did not break down and soon the smile was back as the police laid her to its van to go to Tihar, along with Sharad Kumar, the CEO of Kalaignar whose bail was also rejected.

Even while not heeding the CBI's demand for her immediate arrest after it named her in the second charge-sheet, the Judge had made Kanimozhi
sit through the proceedings of the court every day, except for permitting her to go to Chennai for two days to appear in an income tax case. She always attended the court with a lot of DMK leaders to cheer her up.

As the court announced to pronounce the verdict first at 12.30 and then at 14.30, Kanimozhi sat with her husband G Aravindan, a Hong Kong
based businessman, Raja and other accused in the 2G scam laughing and joking, seemingly oblivious to the impending fate.

Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani had appeared for her to get the bail and so she appeared quite confident to be out on bail. A battery
of lawyers engaged by the DMK for her were quick to assert to move Delhi High Court for bail. "We sure take legal steps to protect our leader's daughter," a DMK MP affirmed.

"Considering the magnitude of the crime and the allegations against her, I am unable to show any consideration to her on this ground, though I wish I could show her some consideration," Judge Saini wrote while referring to Jethmalani's plea to grant her bail on the ground that she is a woman and a mother and a responsible parliamentarian who is not going to run away.

He held that Kanimozhi and co-accused Sharad Kumar can influence the witnesses if granted bail. The order reads: "Considering the magnitude
of the crime, nature and enormity of the allegations, character of evidence on record and the apprehension that the witnesses may be influenced in case the accused are released on bail, I have no hesitation in holding that both applicants/accused have failed to make out a prima facie case for bail. Bail applications are without merit and the same are dismissed."

Judge Saini had earlier reserved his ruling after hearing the bail applications, but he has so far not needed to the bail pleas of any one of the 2G scam accused arrested by the CBI and he took the same stand in case of Kanimozhi that any accused out on bail will influence the witnesses and affect the case.

The CBI's charge is that Kalaignar TV received Rs 200 crores as kickbacks from DB Realty, a subsidiary of Dynamix Balwas (DB) Group promoted by Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, and the same was quickly returned after the agency started investigating the money trail. Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar not only held 20 per cent stakes in the TV company but also controlled it.

The DB Group was granted 2G telecom licences in January 2008 for its venture firm, Swan Telecom, which later sold 45 per cent equity to Etisalat Telecommunications of UAE for $ 900 million (Rs 4,200 crore) and was renamed Etisalat DB Telecom.

The CBI in its chargesheet said the DB Group’s Swan Telecom was ineligible for a telecom licence and the bribe was paid in lieu of the licences granted by Raja, asking it to pay the bribe money into Kalaignar TV run by his DMK supremo's family.

The agency was able to unearth the indirect route the DB Group had taken to cover up the trail of money it gave in bribe. It transferred the money to subsidiary Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables (now Kusegaon Realty), promoted by Balwa’s brother Asif and Rajiv Agarwal, who then channelled it to the TV company through Cineyug Media and Entertainment, promoted by Karim Morani, who still remains out of jail on the medical grounds.

Meanwhile, the special court has fixed hearing on the bail application of one of the main accused Shahid Balwa of DB Realty next Tuesday while the bail applications of his brother Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal are coming up on Saturday.

PTI reports

The court in its 144-page order said that most of the witnesses against the DMK MP are the employees of Kalaignar TV and hence the possibility of they being influenced cannot be ruled out.

"Considering the magnitude of the crime and the fact that many of the witnesses are employees of Kalaignar TV, there is every apprehension that the witnesses may be influenced, if the accused are released on bail," the CBI judge said.

The court also considered the "enormity" of the offence while rejecting the bail of Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar.

"Considering the magnitude of the crime, nature and enormity of the allegations, character of evidence on record and the apprehension that the witnesses may be influenced in case the accused are released on bail, I have no hesitation in holding that both applicants/accused have failed to make out a prima facie case for bail. Bail applications are without merit and the same are dismissed," the judge said.

The court, however, clarified that its observations were "tentative" and they do not express any opinion on the merits of the case.

The CBI had chargesheeted Kanimozhi on April 25, for her alleged role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. It had indicted her for taking a bribe to the tune of Rs 200 crore, which was routed to Kalaignar TV, in which she has 20 percent stake.

The money was routed to the TV channel by DB Realty of Shahid Usman Balwa, who was of one of the beneficiaries of the 2G spectrum allocation scam, with his another firm, Swan Telecom, securing the 2G spectrum licence during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja of her party.

Besides Kanimozhi, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal holds 60 per cent share in the Kalaignar TV. She, however, was not chargesheeted in the case as the CBI said she did not take part in the day-to-day functioning of the channel.

Kanimozhi was chargesheeted along with TV channel MD Sharad Kumar, who too held 20 percent stake in it.

After the CBI filed chargesheeted against them in the Special CBI court, they were asked to appear before it on May 6, when Kanimozhi filed her bail plea.

The court earlier had reserved its verdict on her bail plea for May 14, but had advanced it to today.