Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 6 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in its status report to the Supreme Court Wednesday on the 2G scam has a pointed finger at Dayanidhi Maran, now the textiles minister, for sitting on Aircel’s application for a spectrum licence, as a consequence of which it was sold to Malaysian company Maxis.

The CBI also told an apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly that it needed time till Aug 31 to complete its investigation in the 2G spectrum scam.

Though the report was presented in a sealed envelope, the references to Maran became clear during the reading of its extracts by senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, who appeared for the CBI. Maran held the telecom portfolio 2004-07.

There are allegations that Maxis Communication bought 74 percent stake in Aircel and the company was later allotted more circles to operate in.

The investigating agency said that even though the officials of the department of telecommunication made a unanimous recommendation for the grant of licence to Aircel, then owned by its promoter C. Sivasankaran, Maran sat on the file and raised frivolous objection to block the grant of licence.

There were allegations that Maran created a situation that forced Sivasankaran to sell his stake in Aircel to Maxis group close to his family. Maxis allegedly bought 74 percent stake in Aircel and the company was later allotted more circles to operate in.

Maxis Communication, through its subsidiary Astro, allegedly invested around Rs.600 crore in Sun DTH belonging to the Sun TV Network owned by Maran’s family.

Venugopal told the court that there seemed to be an element of “coercion” in the transfer of stakes by Sivasankaran to Maxis group.

The CBI did not mention the names of Maran or Aircel or Maxis, but said that a promoter was forced to sell stake to a Mauritius-based company during 2004-2006.

The status report indicated that the deal between Loop Telecom and Essar could also be under the scrutiny of the investigating agency.

Pointing to the clean chit given to Loop Telecom by the ministry of corporate affairs, the senior counsel described it as “inappropriate” and amounting to interference into the investigation by the CBI.

The ministry of corporate affairs said that Loop Telecom was not an associate company of Essar as Ruias held only 2.15 percent stake in it as on Sep 3, 2007, when it applied for an Unified Access Service (UAS) licence. The Loop Telecom is alleged to be the front company of Essar.

The CBI has already filed two charge sheets in the case. The first charged former communications minister A. Raja and former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura and Raja’s close aide R.K. Chandolia on several counts of corruption and forgery, misuse of official position and criminal conspiracy.

The investigating agency sought time till Aug 31 to complete its investigations into the main 2G scam.