The CBI Saturday registered a fresh case in the 2G scam, taking it to the doorstep of the BJP-led NDA government.
The CBI Saturday registered a fresh case in the 2G scam, taking it to the doorstep of the BJP-led NDA government, alleging irregularities in allocation of additional spectrum during late Pramod Mahajan’s tenure as telecom minister.
The CBI claimed that the decision of granting additional spectrum caused a loss of Rs508 crore to the exchequer between 2001 and 2007. CBI has named Mahajan’s telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh, and three cellular companies — Bharti Cellular, Hutchison Max Pvt Ltd, and M/s Sterling Cellular Ltd, among others. Mahajan has been excluded in the case since he is deceased.
Subsequently, CBI carried out searches at the premises of the accused persons and companies — Airtel and Vodafone — at five locations (four in NCR and one in Mumbai).
“It was alleged that the then Secretary (Telecom) and the then DDG (VAS), Department of Telecom, entered into a criminal conspiracy with three beneficiary private companies based at Delhi and Mumbai, abusing their official positions as public servants. The public servants, with approval of the then Minister of Telecom (Communications &IT), allegedly took a hurried decision on January 31, 2002, to allocate additional spectrum beyond 6.2MHz, in violation of the report of a Technical Committee etc,” CBI said in its official statement.
The CBI claims that the accused also decided to allocate additional spectrum beyond 6.2MHz by charging spectrum fee of an incremental 1% AGR (adjusted gross revenue) only for allotting additional spectrum from 6.2MHz up to 10MHz, instead of charging an incremental 1% AGR on allotment of spectrum beyond 6.2MHz & charging incremental 2% AGR on allotment of spectrum beyond 8 MHz, as applicable in normal prudence.
“Undue favour caused cumulative advantage of approximately Rs508.22 crore to the beneficiary companies - including the three aforementioned accused companies - since allocation of additional spectrum till the decision was reversed by DoT in 2008, and corresponding loss to the government exchequer,” CBI claims.
During monitoring of the 2G spectrum scam Case, the Supreme Court had directed the CBI in December 2010 to investigate the irregularities committed in the grant of licenses from 2001 to 2007 with particular emphasis on the loss caused to the public exchequer and corresponding gain to the licensees/service providers. Accordingly, a preliminary enquiry was registered by the CBI in January 2011. The agency has already filed a case with regard to the alleged conspiracy in the Aircel-Maxis deal during the tenure of the then telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran.
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