Special CBI court will decide on taking cognizance of the chargesheet against Bharti Airtel-Vodafone on February 11. The court has allowed this extension on a plea submitted by CBI lawyers that it needed some time to peruse the documents related to this case.
CBI today submitted 143 additional documents in the court in its case against Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and three telecom firms -- Bharti Cellular Ltd, Hutchison Max Pvt Ltd (now known as Vodafone India Ltd) and Sterling Cellular Ltd (now known as Vodafone Mobile Service Ltd).
Special CBI judge O P Saini, in his order said today, “It is submitted by the public prosecutor that two boxes of documents have been placed on record today itself apart from the earlier documents. He requires some time and accordingly he submits that adjournment for atleast a week be given.”
CBI had filed a chargesheet in this case on December 21, 2012. This is the third time that the court has deferred this matter on CBI’s plea. CBI’s counsel told Saini that because of the ongoing 2G spectrum trials, including former telecom minister A Raja’s case and the Loop-Essar case it has not been possible to go through all the documents and therefore more time was required.
CBI has alleged that Ghosh in conspiracy with former telecom minister Pramod Mahajan abused his position as a public person and showed undue favour to beneficiary companies causing a loss of Rs 846.44 crore loss to the exchequer. CBI alleged that this also led to incidental gain to other telcos by way of charging additional one per cent of adjusted gross revenue instead of charging the required two per cent for additional spectrum from 6.2Mhz to 10 Mhz.