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The trial court in the telecom spectrum scam today sent notices to all the accused to respond to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)'s plea to call Anil Ambani and wife, Tina, besides 15 other witnesses. The defence counsels are expected to reply to the plea on July 3.
In its application, CBI sought to call Anil Ambani as the chairman of Reliance Group to depose "as to who was responsible for incorporation of shell companies, including Swan Telecom, Tiger Traders, Zebra Consultants, Parrot Consultants and Giraffe Consultancy, and their interlocking equity structures." CBI also expects Ambani to throw some light on the corporate structuring of Swan Telecom, the investment and divestments into and out of the company and its decision to apply for the unified access service licence.
CBI Director Ranjit Sinha told Business Standard Ambani was not a suspect in the case. "I cannot comment on why their names were not included in the list earlier. The list has been submitted by our prosecutor U U Lalit, who is a Supreme Court appointee. It will be good for our case," he said.
The investigation agency also wants the court to summon Tina Ambani in her capacity as the director and chairperson of ADAE Ventures and AAA Consultancy, which did multiple transactions with Tiger Traders. She was also authorised to transact on behalf of Tiger Traders and Swan Telecom, without any limit on the value. Her testimony, CBI feels, is required to depose the person responsible for the transfer of Swan Telecom to DB Group in October 2007.
"The reason to exclude the top honchos is baffling. The onus will lie on CBI to justify them as witnesses. It is not common to bring up new witnesses after trial has progressed so much," said Aman Lekhi, a senior advocate.
The inclusion of the new set of witnesses is related to the case against Reliance Telecom in which CBI has alleged that Swan was controlled completely by Reliance and, therefore, was not eligible to get the telecom licence.
The accused likely to be impacted include Reliance officials - Hari Nair, Surendra Pipara and Gautam Doshi - and DB group's Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka.
"We will oppose CBI's plea tooth and nail. They are trying to derail the trial by calling witnesses after two years of trial," said Vijay Agarwal, senior lawyer representing Balwa and R K Chandolia, former telecom minister A Raja's personal secretary.
Among other witnesses listed by CBI are Reliance Energy's Anita Gokhale and Kamalkant Gupta; Anant Raj Group's president Yogesh Sharma; Raj Pal, then advisor to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; and various representatives of HDFC Bank, State Bank of India and ICICI Bank.
So far the court has recorded statements of over 125 of the 165 listed witnesses, including attorney general.
G E Vahanvati, RBI Governor D Subbarao, former telecom secretary D S Mathur and Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan.
SPECTRUM TANGLE
CBI had sought Ambanis' appearance to depose
| Against the person responsible for incorporation of shell companies, including Swan Telecom;
| As to who was pursuing the applications with DoT;
| And the person/s responsible for the transfer of Swan Telecom to the DB group in October 2007
