Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS) A special CBI court here Saturday reserved its order till Dec 21 on taking cognisance of the third set of charges in the 2G spectrum case alleging criminal conspiracy and cheating by three more firms and five people, including some promoters of the Essar Group.

After the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) Special Public Prosecutor U.U. Lalit accused promoters of the Essar and Loop Telecom of conspiring to cheat the government, Special Judge O.P. Saini said the court will pronounce its order Dec 21 on taking cognizance of the charges.

Lalit informed the court that Loop Telecom made fraudulent Unified Access Service Licensing (UASL) applications for 21 circles Sep 3, 2007 by misrepresenting that it met the eligibility criteria.

“These fraudulent applications were accompanied by false certification to the effect that the company met the condition prescribed under clause 8 of the UASL guidelines, thereby falsely claiming that the applicant company was not under control of any existing licensee and that competition would not be compromised if 21 licences applied for are issued to it,” said the CBI.

The second set of supplementary charges was filed by the probe agency in the special court hearing the case. It has asked for prosecution under the Indian Penal Code for alleged cheating and criminal conspiracy.

The three companies named in the documents are Essar Teleholdings, Loop Telecom and Loop Mobile India, while the five individuals are Essar Group’s Anshuman Ruia, Ravikant Ruia and Vikash Saraf, and promoters of Loop, Ishwari Prasad Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan.

The number of individuals accused in the case has risen to 19, while the companies against which charges have been framed add up to six.

The fresh set of charges alleged that Essar Group used Loop as a front company to acquire telecom licences in 2008. Essar, which already had a 33 percent stake in Vodafone, held substantial equity in Loop and thus violated telecom licence norms, the charge sheet said.

The licences to Loop were given during the tenure of former communications minister A. Raja, who is in Tihar Jail under judicial custody, as the prime accused in the case. The firm secured licences for 21 circles for around Rs.1,450 crore.

“The investigation has established that the said telecom private firm was an ineligible company to get the said licences being an associate company of another telecom group under a corporate veil,” the probe agency said.

“The fraudulent act was actually a result of the entire conspiracy to cheat the DoT (department of telecommunications) through a fraudulent corporate veil, to hide the actual holding structure of Loop Telecom and Loop Mobile India (erstwhile BPL mobile communication) which was committed through Essar Teleholdings,” the CBI said.

The Essar Group earlier denied any wrongdoing.

“Despite the government of India (the ministry of corporate affairs and ministry of law and justice) having confirmed that there is no violation of clause 8 of UASL by the Essar Group, the CBI has proceeded with the charge sheet,” a statement said.

“Essar has always maintained that it held only 2.15 percent in Loop during the time of the application and, therefore, there is no violation of clause 8,” the statement said, referring to the clause that barred cross-holding beyond 10 percent.

Loop Telecom had started operations in 1995 as BPL Mobile, which was then promoted by the Nambiars. The shareholding underwent a change in 2005 after the acquisition of its ownership by the Khaitans. The name was also changed to Loop.

The probe agency filed the first set of charges April 2, naming as accused Raja’s former personal secretary R.K. Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura, Swan Telecom’s Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka and Unitech Wireless’ Sanjay Chandra.

It also named as co-accused Reliance Group’s Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair, besides three companies — Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Reliance Telecom.

The first supplementary charge sheet filed April 25 named Raja’s DMK party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, Kalaignar TV’s Sharad Kumar, Cineyug Film’s Karim Morani and directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Asif Balwa and Rajeev B. Agarwal.

Among them, only Raja and Behura remain in judicial custody. The others have got bail.