FIR in NDAs 2G,officials,Airtel,Vodafone named

Soon after filing the FIR,the agency carried out searches in Delhi,Mumbai and Gurgaon on the offices of the two telecom firms and and residences of former government officials. The CBI claimed to have seized several documents related to investments made by the officials.

The agency has pegged the loss caused to the exchequer at Rs 508 crore in the allocation of additional spectrum to the two telecom companies.

The CBI,however,did not name Mahajan in the FIR. In a statement,the agency said,The then Minister for Telecom and Communication (Pramod Mahajan) has been excluded since he expired. However,he was a part of the criminal conspiracy to allocate the additional spectrum in a hurried manner on January 31,2002.

The case against Ghosh,Gupta,Bharti Cellular (now known as Bharti Airtel),and Hutchinson Max and Sterling Cellular (now known as Vodafone Essar) was registered under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Gupta retired as director,Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

The Supreme Court had asked the agency to probe the alleged irregularities in the allocation of spectrum during the tenure of the NDA and UPA-I between 2001 and 2007.

The CBI registered a case against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran in October this year while the preliminary enquiries (PEs) for the tenures of Mahjan and Arun Shourie were pending. Shourie has so far been given a clean chit by CBI.

In its FIR,the CBI alleged that DoT had increased the base spectrum for telecom companies from 4.4 MhZ to 6.2 MhZ in violation of the technical committee report and also allocated extra spectrum on subscriber-based criteria. It was alleged that the then Secretary (Telecom) and the then DDG (Value Added Service),Department of Telecom,entered into a criminal conspiracy with three beneficiary private companies and abused their official positions as public servants.

The FIR alleged that the accused also decided to allocate such additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz by charging spectrum fee of an incremental 1 per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) only for allotting additional spectrum from 6.2 MHz upto 10 MHz instead of charging incremental 1 per cent AGR on allotment of spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz and charging incremental 2 percent AGR on allotment of spectrum beyond 8 MHz,as applicable in normal prudence.

Reacting to the CBI raids,Vodafone India said,There was a visit by CBI officials this morning at our office in Mumbai and Delhi seeking information related to to the spectrum allocation to operators during 2001-02. All our documents are in complete compliance with the governing laws and regulations. Vodafone India is completely co-operating with the officials and will provide them all the required details as part of their checks.

A spokesperson for Bharti Airtel said,We would like to categorically state that all the spectrum allotted to us from time to time has been strictly as per the stated government policy. We are providing all details and correspondence to the authorities and shall provide complete support as needed in the matter.