The CBI on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it had completed the preliminary inquiry into Dayanidhi Maran’s, former telecom minister, role in the 2G spectrum allocation scam and an FIR would be filed within a few days.
KK Venugopal, the agency’s counsel, submitted a status report in a sealed envelope without making any reference to P Chidambaram, who was the finance minister in 2008.
Jailed former telecom minister A Raja has alleged that Chidambaram had been kept in the loop when he gave out licences for 2G spectrum to a select few operators in 2008.
The UPA-II has been caught in a bind over the past few days following Subramaniam Swamy’s “expose” of a finance ministry letter to prime minister Manmohan Singh in March 2011.
The letter suggested that Chidambaram could have prevented the 2G scam if he had insisted on auctioning the spectrum.
Venugopal said the findings of the investigating officer need to be vetted at five levels before an FIR can be filed. It has been done at two levels. “The rest would be done in the next few days,” he said towards the end of the inconclusive hearing in which the judges are dealing with the core issue of setting up a special investigating team (SIT) to monitor and supervise the agency’s investigations against all the accused.
Maran has been accused of creating a situation where C Sivasankaran, the original owner of telecom company Aircel, was forced to sell off his stake in the company to T Ananda Krishnan’s Maxis group based in Malaysia in 2006. Within months of Krishnan buying Sivasankaran’s stakes in Aircel, Sun Direct TV — owned by Maran’s brother Kalanidhi — received substantial investment from Maxis group (Aircel). Krishnan is believed to be close to the Maran brothers.
Maran was the telecom minister from May 23, 2004 to May 15, 2007, and Raja had replaced him. Apart from Maran, the CBI will file FIRs against Essar officials as well. Venugopal informed the court that it had completed its investigations against telecom companies Essar and Loop in the 2G scam and a decision on the future course of action would be taken within two to three weeks.
Essar, it has been alleged, was not entitled to get 2G licence. But it floated a front company, Loop, by disguising its ownership to get the licence.
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