After spending three years probing whether Reliance Infocomm masked international calls as domestic ones through auto call-rerouting, the CBI appears all set to close the case as it could not make any headway.
Though CBI spokesman Harsh Bahal maintained "the matter was still under investigation," sources in the agency said a closure report had been finalised as it was not possible for the CBI to probe into the case any further.
After a year-long preliminary enquiry, CBI registered a formal case in September 2006 against four top former officials of Reliance Infocomm (now renamed Reliance Communications) -- then director Manoj Modi, then CEO Akhil Gupta, A Shankar, then head of corporate affairs wing, and Pankaj Panwar, then head regulator -- and unknown BSNL officials for "masking" global calls as local ones and causing losses to the state exchequer.
CBI also sought help from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to ascertain how international calls were allegedly routed as local ones by Reliance Infocomm before its de-merger after the sleuths had failed to make any headway in the case which was described as "too technical".
CBI, while deciding on closure of the case, had also opined that there was no law spelled out to at that point of time to deal with the alleged crimes.
TRAI was approached because the Telecom Dispute Appellate Tribunal, in its ruling, had termed the alleged auto-routing of calls as a threat to national security.
The ruling of telecom tribunal TDSAT had imposed a fine of Rs 150 crore on the company for allegedly breaching licence conditions.