ED summons Vodafone in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which has initiated a probe into the case relating to irregularities in allocation of additional spectrum during late Pramod Mahajan’s tenure as the telecom minister, has issued a notice to mobile service provider Vodafone to submit financial details relating to the matter.

The federal agency has not yet registered any case against the company under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

However, it has shot off a letter addressed to the company’s managing director to provide documents relating to shareholding pattern and other financial details by April 17.

A Vodafone spokesperson confirmed receipt of the summon and said a legal representative would provide all information sought by the ED on the specified date.

The ED has begun looking into the money laundering angle of the case after CBI’s probe into the irregular additional spectrum. In the FIR filed by the CBI, it has alleged the Department of Telecommunications had increased the base spectrum for telecom companies from 4.4 megahertz (MHz) to 6.2 MHz during Mahajan’s tenure from 2001 to 2003 without following proper procedure. It has also said that the procedure followed for extra spectrum allocated during that period was on subscriber-based criteria, which was flawed.