Despite the Union Government reiterating its commitment to fight against corruption, high-profile graft cases continue to languish for years in courts. Take the case of appeal in the 2G Scam case, pending in the Delhi High Court for more than eight years. 137 hearings have happened and still the final hearing has not yet started. The next hearing is on November 18. CBI and ED filed a prompt appeal in March 2018 after the trial court judge OP Saini acquitted the accused, ignoring the Supreme Court verdict on the 2G scam.
Interestingly, it took 126 hearings and 13 judges to get basic Leave to Grant Appeal stage in March 2024, which is quite unheard. Normally, 4-5 hearings are needed to get Leave to Grant Appeal for an appeal to be admitted. But it took 126 hearings due to the lethargy of prosecution, where none other than Solicitor General Tushar Mehta is the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP), who has not yet appeared in court, leaving it to Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain to handle the high-profile 2G Scam appeal case.
Now, 11 hearings on the final arguments stage have happened with literally no arguments. In July 2024, the Delhi High Court ordered for a weekly hearing on every Friday afternoon, starting from August 30, 2024. But nothing happened due to a tussle between the prosecutor, CBI and the Registry on digitisation of documents in 18 trunks. Around 6-7 hearings wasted on this tussle on handing over the digitised copy, and already four judges changed, ordering the Registry to provide digitised copy to CBI and all accused in the 2G Scam, including A.Raja and Kanimozhi and Corporates involving Swan Etisalat, Unitech, Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group and Essar, etc.
The last hearing was on August 11, when Justice Ravinder Dudeja (Single Bench handling cases involving MPs and MLAs) was presiding. The accused side said that one of their advocates is busy in another court and sought time and postponed the hearing to a long date — November 18. Prosecution never objected to this long adjournment on a silly reason.
Aircel — Maxis case
Another high-profile case on Aircel-Maxis bribery, involving former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and son Karti, registered a chargesheet in 2018, is still in the so-called fast track court handling MPs and MLAs involved cases. The case is on the stage of arguments on the Framing of Charges stage. Around 254 hearings happened in this case and the next hearing is scheduled on January 31, 2026. This case is expected to take more time, as five accused are from Malaysia, and the country has never cooperated with the Indian court’s notices.
Bribe givers are the Malaysian telecom giant Maxis and its subsidiaries. Other accused from Malaysia are Maxis promoter tycoon T Ananda Krishnan and the company CEO Ralph Marshal. Ananda Krishnan passed away in November 2024. Recently, in September 2025, the trial court again issued a summons to the Marshal and the company after CBI’s request. The Malaysians are not at all going to co-operate with Indian courts and ultimately, the court had to pursue a trial with Indian accused persons by declaring the foreign accused in the absconding category.
INX Media bribery case
The high-profile case - INX Media bribery - is an open and shut case as the bribe giver Indrani Mukerjee has admitted that she paid a bribe of One Million Dollars in 2006 to Chidambaram’s son Karti, linked companies and turned as Approver. The chargesheet was filed in October 2019 at the MPs/MLAs involved cases handling so called fast track court. Court records show that 243 hearings have happened in the INX Media bribery case, which is still in the initial stages of arguments on Framing of Charges. And the next hearing is scheduled on November 22.
CBI also played a mysterious role in delaying the INX Media bribery trial by approaching the High Court to stay an order by the trial court. The trial court in 2022 ordered CBI to provide copies of documents seized from Chidambaram’s home, citing that the chargesheet had already been filed. There are landmark judgments from the Supreme Court on this matter on providing copies of seized materials to the accused after the chargesheet is filed. Instead of obeying the trial court order, CBI went for an appeal and got slapped by a higher court. CBI’s mysterious move to file an appeal delayed the trial for more than two years. Normally, accused people will try every way to delay the trial. This is the first time prosecutor CBI is making foolish moves, leading to a delay in the trial.
The ED unearthed Chidambaram family’s assets in 14 countries and 21 foreign bank accounts. Many of these assets worth 100s of crores in India, London and Spain are attached by ED.
Coal Scam cases
Coal Scam cases probe was mainly limited to the then Coal Secretary HC Gupta and then Joint Secretary KS Kropha. These officers were convicted in more than six cases and discharged in two cases. Both officers did not expose the role of political heads who asked them to sign the controversial coal block allotments and only argued in the trial, denying the conspiracy angle.
There are 57 cases in the Coal Scam and 25 cases were decided in trial, where the majority of the cases ended up with convictions of beneficiaries and officers who approved allotments. Out of the 25 cases, convictions happened in 18 cases and six cases were acquitted and one case was closed by the CBI. As many as 27 cases are pending in trial stages and five are still in the investigation stage. What kind of investigation has been going on for the past 13 years is another question. Many of the convicted persons are out on bail and waiting for the appeal stage in the Delhi High Court.
Interestingly, high-profile cases in the Coal Scam just fizzled out. One such case is the Birla Group’s Hindalco case, where trial judge Bharat Parashar summoned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2015. Congress made hell and held protest marches against summoning the former Prime Minister, who was in charge of the Coal Ministry in 2006. Interesting things happened in this case when Manmohan Singh approached the Supreme Court, and the summons notice got stayed. Actually, Singh was supposed to approach the concerned Coal Bench of the apex court. But he cleverly approached another Bench and got the trial court notice stayed. CBI, which was supposed to oppose this, kept silent and this case is in a deep freezer now, ultimately saving the Birla Group.
Probes on the Tata Group and Jindal, which were the major scams on coal liquefaction, reached nowhere and many big Coal allotment beneficiaries joined the ruling BJP and the probes and trials on slow place and in some cases, CBI quietly filed closure reports.
National Herald case
Now, let us look into the politically sensitive National Herald case. In June 2014, the trial court summoned Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s private complaint. Swamy filed petitions to the Income Tax, CBI and Enforcement Directorate to take up the matters involving tax evasion, money laundering and abuse of people in power. In January 2018, Income Tax fined `414 crore involving capturing `2000 crore worth of land deals. Sonia and Rahul’s appeal against the Income Tax order failed and the Delhi High Court’s two Benches upheld the Income Tax order of `414 crore penalty in mid-2018.
Sonia and Rahul approached the Supreme Court in November 2018 to stop the Income Tax from taking action. Justice AK Sikri gave a stay order saying no further coercive action by the Income Tax till the final order is passed. Justice Sikri also stayed the eviction from Herald House in a case filed Ministry of Urban Development on the same time. However, Justice Sikri retired without giving a final decree in these two sensitive cases in March 2019. To date, the case is not listed in the Supreme Court and the Prosecution has not even mentioned getting early listing of these two cases, even after winning at all forums.
After 10 years, ED has filed a chargesheet against Sonia and Rahul on the money laundering aspects of the National Herald case in April 2025. This case is reserved for orders for taking cognisance of the chargesheet on November 29. Swamy’s private case is still in the trial stage, where Sonia is cross-examining Swamy. The case was stayed by Swamy in the High Court in 2021 after the trial court did not allow him to produce Income Tax findings before crossing. Swamy has now withdrawn that stay and approached the trial court for allowing him to get access to the ED’s findings. CBI has registered a case in National Herald’s property allotment violations in Panchkula land, avoiding charge-sheeting against the main beneficiaries Sonia and Rahul and the case is at a slow pace in the trial stage in a so-called fast track court in Chandigarh.
Robert Vadra land scams
Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, involved in land scams in Haryana, was the hot topic for the BJP and AAP from 2012 to 2014, which ultimately collapse of Congress in many elections. After coming to power in mid-2014, the BJP Governments in Haryana and the Centre were literally at a slow pace on the probe. In 2018, Haryana Police filed an FIR in this case and recently, in August 2025, ED registered a money laundering case against Vadra and others involved in the controversial land deals.
Solution for fast-tracking cases
The only solution to speed up the Prosecution is the formation of a high-power committee consisting of heads of CBI, ED, Income Tax and top Law Officers to monitor at least in a month on the status of high-profile cases. This committee must regularly monitor the status of the trial and give directions to the Prosecution to speed up the cases.
