 "Heads of firms named in 2G chargesheet get court summons")
In a development that shocked the corporate world, the CBI special court on Tuesday named Bharti Airtel CMD Sunil Bharti Mittal, Hutchison Essar’s former MD Asim Ghosh and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the alleged spectrum scam during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule in 2002. Both Bharti and Essar are readying to challenge on Tuesday’s order.
The other two 2G cases the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) has registered so far pertain to a period during the rule of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
After the matter was deferred several times in recent months, the court on Tuesday took cognizance of the CBI chargesheet. Judge
O P Saini said in his order that Mittal, Ruia and Ghosh were the “alter ego” of their respective companies. “The acts of the companies are to be attributed and imputed to them. I find enough material on record to proceed against them.”
For Ruia, this is the second case against him in 2G-related scam. He is an accused in the Loop-Essar matter, too.
Citing its failure in finding any private individual in the criminal conspiracy, CBI had in its chargesheet on December 21, 2012, named only Shyamal Ghosh, then telecom secretary, and three private companies — Bharti Cellular (now Bharti Airtel), Hutchison Max and Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone) — as accused.
The court has summoned all the three corporate heads before it on April 11, along with Shyamal Ghosh. The charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating under 120B of the Indian Penal Code will apply on the accused corporate executives, too.
The former telecom secretary has also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act, applicable only on government officials for abusing their official post to provide and take pecuniary benefits.
When it is framing the charges, CBI can add and drop charges against the accused. “The court has reached a conclusion based on the evidence presented by CBI. It does not weaken or strengthen its (CBI’s) case against private individuals, who will have to defend themselves against the chargesheet,” Aman Lekhi, senior advocate, told Business Standard.
Saini had, in the previous hearing, explicitly asked CBI to name the private individuals involved in the case, since “it takes two people to do a conspiracy and it cannot name only a government person”.
Reacting to on Tuesday’s development, Bharti Airtel said: “We will fight this chargesheet against the company and the chairman.” It added it was confident its position would be vindicated before the courts. “CBI has asserted it has not found any evidence of conspiracy against any individual whatsoever... the requests for additional spectrum allocation to improve the quality of service and to raise the standards of mobile telephony in India had been made by several telecom operators and industry associations since 1999-2000.”
Asim Ghosh, now based in Canada and the president and CEO of Husky Energy, an oil and natural gas company, could not be reached for comment. An Essar Group spokesperson said the company was consulting legal experts and exploring all legal options and “will in due course take up appropriate legal proceedings to challenge the order”. At the relevant time, Essar Group was a minority partner of Hutchison Group in various companies offering mobile telecom services in India, the spokesperson said.
The biggest 2G case registered by CBI involves former telecom minister A Raja, besides 15 others, including Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, Reliance Telecom’s senior executives Hari Nair, Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara, and DB Realty directors Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka. In another chargesheet, CBI named Essar Group Vice-Chairman Ravi Ruia and Promoter-Director Anshuman Ruia, Loop Telecom promoters Kiran Khaitan and I P Khaitan, besides Essar Teleholdings, its CEO Vikash Saraf, Loop Telecom and Loop Mobile India.
In the current case, CBI had alleged Shyamal Ghosh, in collusion with Mahajan, abused his position as a public servant and extended undue favours to beneficiary companies, causing a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.
The other two 2G cases the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) has registered so far pertain to a period during the rule of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
After the matter was deferred several times in recent months, the court on Tuesday took cognizance of the CBI chargesheet. Judge
O P Saini said in his order that Mittal, Ruia and Ghosh were the “alter ego” of their respective companies. “The acts of the companies are to be attributed and imputed to them. I find enough material on record to proceed against them.”
For Ruia, this is the second case against him in 2G-related scam. He is an accused in the Loop-Essar matter, too.
Citing its failure in finding any private individual in the criminal conspiracy, CBI had in its chargesheet on December 21, 2012, named only Shyamal Ghosh, then telecom secretary, and three private companies — Bharti Cellular (now Bharti Airtel), Hutchison Max and Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone) — as accused.
The court has summoned all the three corporate heads before it on April 11, along with Shyamal Ghosh. The charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating under 120B of the Indian Penal Code will apply on the accused corporate executives, too.
The former telecom secretary has also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act, applicable only on government officials for abusing their official post to provide and take pecuniary benefits.
| CBI filed a charge-sheet against Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and former Secretary of the Department of Telecom Shyamal Ghosh, on Dec 21, 2012 for alleged irregularities in allocating additional 2G spectrum in 2002. But, no promoter of any telecom company was named |
| The case dates back to when the Telecom Ministry, under Pramod Mahajan, introduced new spectrum allocation rules based on subscriber-linked criteria. While the technical committee of the Department of Telecom had recommended allotting additional spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz only after the operators reached a subscriber base of 9 lakh, the requirement was allegedly reduced by DoT to 4 lakh |
| CBI found irregular allocation of additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz to 10 MHz to GSM operators, including Bharti and Vodafone during Mahajan's rule. CBI alleged favouritism and arbitrariness by some officers in the DoT (department of telecom), bypassing the opinions of the member (finance), the wireless adviser and even the highest decision-making body in the DoT, the Telecom Commission |
| According to CBI, the decision to give additional spectrum without suitable increase in revenue share caused undue advantage to various mobile companies and loss to the national exchequer to the tune of Rs 846.44 crore |
When it is framing the charges, CBI can add and drop charges against the accused. “The court has reached a conclusion based on the evidence presented by CBI. It does not weaken or strengthen its (CBI’s) case against private individuals, who will have to defend themselves against the chargesheet,” Aman Lekhi, senior advocate, told Business Standard.
Saini had, in the previous hearing, explicitly asked CBI to name the private individuals involved in the case, since “it takes two people to do a conspiracy and it cannot name only a government person”.
Reacting to on Tuesday’s development, Bharti Airtel said: “We will fight this chargesheet against the company and the chairman.” It added it was confident its position would be vindicated before the courts. “CBI has asserted it has not found any evidence of conspiracy against any individual whatsoever... the requests for additional spectrum allocation to improve the quality of service and to raise the standards of mobile telephony in India had been made by several telecom operators and industry associations since 1999-2000.”
Asim Ghosh, now based in Canada and the president and CEO of Husky Energy, an oil and natural gas company, could not be reached for comment. An Essar Group spokesperson said the company was consulting legal experts and exploring all legal options and “will in due course take up appropriate legal proceedings to challenge the order”. At the relevant time, Essar Group was a minority partner of Hutchison Group in various companies offering mobile telecom services in India, the spokesperson said.
The biggest 2G case registered by CBI involves former telecom minister A Raja, besides 15 others, including Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, Reliance Telecom’s senior executives Hari Nair, Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara, and DB Realty directors Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka. In another chargesheet, CBI named Essar Group Vice-Chairman Ravi Ruia and Promoter-Director Anshuman Ruia, Loop Telecom promoters Kiran Khaitan and I P Khaitan, besides Essar Teleholdings, its CEO Vikash Saraf, Loop Telecom and Loop Mobile India.
In the current case, CBI had alleged Shyamal Ghosh, in collusion with Mahajan, abused his position as a public servant and extended undue favours to beneficiary companies, causing a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.