)
Tina Ambani, Bollywood star of the 1980s and wife of Reliance ADAG chairman Anil Ambani, told the trial court in the 2G telecom spectrum case on Friday that being a housewife and a social worker, she had no knowledge of Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, Zebra Consultants or any other company alleged to be associate firms of Reliance ADAG. She added she was not involved with any of the group companies.
“I have no role in the running of Reliance ADA group, as I am a housewife, run a hospital and do a lot of social work. I have never been associated with any company of this group,” Tina told the court, where she came as a prosecution witness.
Tina, who was a rage in films like Des Pardes, Karz and Baton Baton Mein, was thronged by women constables for her autograph. The former actress was guarded by umbrellas and a battery of security men as she made her way, wearing dark brown shades, into the crowded Patiala House courtroom for almost two hours of proceedings.
On Thursday, Anil Ambani, while deposing before the court in the case, had claimed he did not recall any of the associate companies, including Swan, and shrugged off the allegation that ADAG held 9.9 per cent in it. She looked calm in a pastel-coloured embroidered salwar kameez, often running her fingers through her hair and wiping sweat off her face. She was even seen smiling at the exchanges between lawyers and judge O P Saini. After the proceedings, she invited the judge to visit the hospital run by the group in Mumbai.
During her examination by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) prosecutor K K Goel, she was shown many documents related to the case and identified her own signatures on these.
The court observed that “her adverseness springs from her not recalling about the companies relating to which she signed the documents”. On Thursday, when Ambani resiled from his previous statement and said he did not recall any of the associate companies, the judge had said: “You are forgetting too much. Try to recollect something… It can go against you, that you don’t even recall the names of your companies”.
When Tina was asked to identify the signatures of Anil Ambani on some of the documents, defence counsel Harish Salve objected, saying when the R-ADAG chairman had already identified his signatures, why was she being asked to identify these? Salve said it seemed that CBI was “doubting” Anil Ambani’s signatures. “They bring a witness and do not trust his/her memory. What is this?,” Salve said. The judge agreed.
She also said she did not know Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara but knew Gautam Doshi as a tax consultant though she had never interacted with him. “After seeing the aforesaid documents, I am unable to recall the role played by Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara,” she said. Doshi, Nair and Pipara, officials of Reliance ADAG, along with Reliance Telecom, Swan Telecom and its promoters, Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, are facing trial in the case. So are former telecom minister A Raja and Member of Parliament Kanimozhi of the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam.
The court in its July 19 order had said that CBI’s plea to summon Anil Ambani, Tina and 11 others as prosecution witnesses was essential for arriving at a just decision in the case.
CBI is investigating the 2G case. It had told the court that Ambani was part of the decision to invest Rs 992 crore in Swan Telecom and that he should made a witness to further the cause of justice. The agency also said Tina Ambani had presided over the meetings of the holding companies of Swan Telecom.
When the court asked her to identify the minutes of a January 2006 board meeting, she said: “I chaired this meeting, if it is so minuted. The business shown to have been transacted must have been transacted, if it has been minuted… they used to brief me before a board meeting and they would tell me what was to be done. If Anil Ambani has been shown to be present in the meeting as director, he must have attended it, but I do not recall it as the meeting took place long back in 2006.”
CBI said it wanted to cross-examine her, as the answers were not satisfactory. “Tina Ambani is concealing facts. Her replies are not satisfactory. She is deliberately concealing knowledge about her consent to the documents and the role played by her,” said the CBI lawyer.
