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Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal has moved the Supreme Court, seeking the summons issued against him by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court be quashed.
On March 19, the special court had named Mittal, former managing director of Hutchison Essar Asim Ghosh and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia as accused in the 2G telecom spectrum allocation scam. The court had asked Mittal to appear before it on April 11.
Bharti Airtel declined to comment on the development.
On March 19, the CBI court took cognisance of a charge sheet. In his order, judge O P Saini said Mittal, Ruia and Ghosh were the “alter egos” 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.” Saini also said they represented “the directing mind and will of each company”.
On the same day, an Essar spokesperson had said the company was consulting experts and exploring all legal options and “will in due course take up appropriate legal proceedings to challenge the order.”
Citing its failure to find any private individual in the criminal conspiracy, the CBI had, in its charge sheet dated December 21, 2012, only named Shyamal Ghosh, then telecom secretary, and three private companies---Bharti Cellular (now Bharti Airtel), Hutchison Max (now Vodafone) and Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone)---as accused.
The CBI special court has summoned all the three corporate bigwigs to the court on April 11, with Shyamal Ghosh and the representatives of the accused companies. Consequently, the charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the Indian Penal Code will be applicable on the accused executives. Besides, Ghosh has been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act, applicable only on government officials.
The 2G case involves former telecom minister A Raja and fifteen others. In this, CBI had alleged Ghosh was in conspiracy with the former telecom minister, Pramod Mahajan, who abused his position as a public person and showed undue favour to beneficiary companies, causing a loss of Rs 846.44 crore to the exchequer.
In his last hearing before the order, Saini had asked CBI to name the private individuals involved in the case, as “it takes two people to do a conspiracy and it cannot name only a government person”.
