Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 27 (IANS) The Essar group and Loop Telecom Friday denied violations of any licence guidelines and said they had nothing to do with the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

“Charge-sheet relates only to alleged violation of Clause 8 of the UASL (Unified Access Service License) guidelines and nothing to do with the 2G scam,” Essar said in a statement.

“The only charge alleged against Essar pertains to the interpretation of Clause 8 of the UASL guidelines which at best is a contract issue and a civil matter, and no criminal action was warranted. No such action has been taken against any other telecom company under similar allegations,” it added.

Clause 8 of the UASL guidelines says that no single company either directly or through its associates shall have substantial equity holding in more than one licensee company in the same service area for the access services, namely basic, cellular and unified access services.

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here has issued fresh summons for Feb 22 to promoters of Essar Group and Loop Telecom — Ravi Ruia, Anshuman Ruia, I.P. Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan — accused in the 2G spectrum scam case, after they failed to appear before the court Friday.

Essar said it was pleased by the matter being deferred to Feb 22 by the special court as the jurisdiction issue was coming up in Delhi High Court on Feb 16.

Loop Telecom also said it was not a part of the 2G Scam. “The case is over interpretation of a Clause 8 of the UASL guideline which is at best a civil matter.”

Loop said the Khaitans were NRIs and therefore there was no question of evading summons served in accordance with law.

It criticised pasting of summons in India in the presence of media saying it was clearly “uncalled for”.

Both Essar and Loop want their case not to be heard by the CBI special court dealing with the 2G case as they had not been charged under the prevention of corruption act.