There is no immediate clarity whether the SIT report, submitted last month, is a clean chit to Essar or allegations against it will be continue to be probed
The Delhi police has found no trace of corruption or threat to national security in a stash of transcripts of calls between politicians and high-profile people in the Essar phone tapping case.
"No cognizable offence was made out in the conversations received from complaint lawyer Suren Uppal," its Special Investigation Team (SIT) has said in its report to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The SIT was formed in July 2016 on MHA's directions to probe the case that pertains to alleged tapping, interception and recording of phone calls of politicians, government officials and business houses by the corporate major between 2001 and 2006.
There is no immediate clarity whether the SIT report, submitted last month, is a clean chit to Essar or allegations against it will be continue to be probed.
The team was probing two aspects: whether phones were tapped legally or illegally and whether there was any conspiracy of corruption or threat to national interest in the conversations.
There were allegations that phones of former union ministers who held portfolios like railways, finance and defence; heads of India's biggest corporate conglomerates and their wives; Bollywood actors; senior bureaucrats; and heads of PSU banks had been tapped.
The intercepts include conversations of key members of the PMO under then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee such as NK Singh, Ranjan Bhattacharya and Brajesh Mishra.
Calls of senior Cabinet Ministers such as then Telecom Minister, late Pramod Mahajan, and Petroleum Minister Ram Naik were also alleged to be tapped. The phone numbers of promoters of undivided Reliance Group were also "tapped".
The SIT report said that Uppal gave audio recordings in 12 compact discs to it and said he had acquired them from former Essar employee Albasit Khan.
The report said Khan has denied that he carried out any illegal surveillance for the company and said that the audio tapes in his possession were given to him by a senior Mumbai Crime Branch officer.
"There was no material on record whether Khan recorded it or the Mumbai Police officer recorded it," the report said.
However, Uppal told the SIT that Khan confided in him that Essar CEO Prashant Ruia had ordered phone tapping.
There is no material records of erstwhile Essar Hutchison Telecom to establish when and where tapping took place.
The tapping was allegedly done through BPL (now Loop) Mobile and Hutch servers through cell-to-cell interception.
The phone numbers provided by the complaint and the service providers do not exist anymore.
"There is no material on record to prove that it was legally malafide," the report said.
The SIT was formed following a plea by Uppal in the Delhi High Court. When the Centre said that an SIT had been formed, the court disposed of the petition.
WHAT’S NEXT
There is no immediate clarity whether the SIT report, submitted last month, is a clean chit to Essar or the allegations that it tapped phone calls of politicians, government officials and business houses will continue to be probed.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Essar")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}