The Supreme Court will tomorrow hear a public interest litigation on expanding the scope of CBI investigation into the allocation of spectrum prior to 2001.
The petition filed by the Citizens Grievances Redressal Foundation, an NGO represented by senior lawyer Shanti Bhushan, submitted that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report of 2000 shows that some of existing telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea were major beneficiaries of the migration from a fixed-licence-fee regime to that of revenue-sharing.
The petition seeks an investigation by CBI into the various illegalities and irregularities in the telecom sector that took place prior to 2001, which have been specifically highlighted in the CAG report of 2000.
Out of the estimated loss of an additional Rs 36,993 crore as reported by CAG, the share of loss of Bharti Airtel will be about Rs 8,000 crore and Vodafone Essar of Rs 6,000 crore. Till now, the court has monitored the probe into allocation of spectrum from 2001 to 2007 and that of during the regime of former communications minister A Raja.
