Special CBI judge Dharmesh Sharma discharged MTNL Junior Telecom Officer (JTO) H J Singh and seven other south Delhi residents saying that the CBI did not have "an iota of evidence", and it also made a complete mess of the case, in which the agency had gone on to allege international transfer of money through illegal hawala channels without any proof.
"The case of the prosecution was in tatters right from the very beginning and the investigating officer left no stone unturned to make a complete mess of it," the court said.
"No evidence has come forth in regard to the manner in which the money was being collected through hawala channels for providing the unlawful conference facility. In an operation like this, how money exchanged hands has not been explained by the state (CBI)," it said.
The trial court's order came two years after the Delhi High Court discharged prime accused Shiv Shankar Mishra, an MTNL meter reader in 2009 for lack of evidence.
According to the CBI, south Delhi residents Mohd Shafiq, Mohd Irshad and Mohd Javed had hatched a criminal conspiracy in March-April 1998 with MTNL JTO Singh and Mishra to run telephone booths to make international calls with phones meant to make only local calls by tempering with their connections in telephone exchange.
As per the conspiracy, four telephones were issued in names of three other accused Sudhir Kumar, Mohan Singh and Suman Arora and were installed in a flat at Shahpur Jat area of south Delhi and were meant to cater to the clientele having their relatives living in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere abroad.
CBI said the JTO had the unique password to access the system to upgrade the phones with local call facility to ISD one and he tempered with the connection to mask international calls made by them.
The court acquitted all accused while pointing out that the CBI had not probed even where exactly the calls had been made and from which phone, let aside probing into the complex allegation of money transfer through hawala channels, linked to telephone calls.