2G case: CBI court summons Sunil Mittal, others

In a significant development, the CBI Special Court has summoned top telecom executives including Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel, Ravi Ruia of Essar Group, and Asim Ghosh, former Managing Director of Hutchison Max (now Vodafone India), for their alleged involvement in additional spectrum allocation in 2002.

Shyamal Ghosh, former Secretary of Department of Telecom, has also been summoned on April 11.

While the CBI charge-sheet had not named these individuals, Special Judge O.P. Saini said that these executives were in control of affairs of the respective companies.

“As such they represent the directing mind of the companies. In this situation, the acts of the companies are to be attributed and imputed to them. Consequently, I find enough material on record to proceed against them also,’’ stated the two page order given by Saini.

Spectrum allocation rules

The case dates back to 2002 when the Telecom Ministry, under Pramod Mahajan, introduced new spectrum allocation rules based on subscriber-linked criteria. While the technical committee of the Department of Telecom had recommended allotting additional spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz only after the operators reached a subscriber base of 9 lakh, the requirement was reduced by DoT to 4 lakh.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has alleged that the decision to allocate additional spectrum to mobile companies in 2002 was a conspiracy to benefit Bharti Airtel.

CBI note

In an internal note to the Department of Personnel and Training seen by Business Line, the anti-corruption branch of the investigating agency has stated that it had prime-facie evidence that the role of Bharti Airtel was more compared with other players that had also benefited from the policy decision.

“It is relevant to note that only Bharti Cellular had reached the subscriber base of 4 lakh as on December 31, 2001 and of 5 lakh on January 31, 2002, that is on the day the said decision was taken,” the CBI said in the note.

According to the CBI, the decision to give additional spectrum without suitable increase in revenue share caused undue advantage of Rs 846 crore to various mobile companies but half of this was on account of Bharti Airtel.

The CBI said that investigations have revealed that Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel, met Shyamal Ghosh, then Secretary of DoT, and the late Pramod Mahajan regarding this issue.

Spectrum allocation

The then private secretary to Mahajan has disclosed that in a high-level meeting, technical officers had said that better use of technology could avoid grant of additional spectrum.

But the Minister insisted that grant of additional spectrum was necessary for growth and on the same day, a decision was taken to allocate additional spectrum.

The CBI has, however, added that during investigation, no evidence has emerged indicating any overt act or criminal intent on the part of any person belonging to the telecom companies that benefited from the policy decision.

Criminal conspiracy

The investigating agency has already filed an FIR against Shyamal Ghosh and J.R. Gupta, the then Deputy Director-General of DoT, for entering into a criminal conspiracy with Bharti Airtel and Hutchison Max (now Vodafone India).

The investigating agency has alleged that Gupta put up a note on January 31, 2002 “wrongly” mentioning that a consensus had emerged on allocating additional spectrum. The final approval was given by Mahajan on the same day “in haste”.

The CBI has stated that investigations have revealed why such an undue was shown. “Airtel’s IPO was open and immense interest would have followed on such allocation of additional spectrum… the number of share applied for on the very next day disproportionately increased,” the note states.

Attorney General’s views

But there were differences of opinion among the investigating officers on the legal way forward and, therefore, the CBI has asked the views of the Attorney General on a number of issues, including whether a case can be made out against Sunil Mittal for prosecution along with the government officers.

Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati had said that the available evidence needs to be examined to take a call on whether or not to prosecute Vodafone India along with Bharti Airtel in the case relating to alleged irregularities in allocating additional 2G spectrum in 2002.

The AG had declined to comment on the views of the Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, on whether or not to prosecute Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel.

In his opinion, Vahanvati had said he would give his views only on issues where there is a difference of opinion between the Director of Prosecution and Director, CBI.

While the Director of Prosecution had named Mittal in his report saying the Airtel chief had met the then Telecom Minister late Pramod Mahajan, he added that such meetings can be looked at only if there is evidence of any record of the meeting indicating any criminal intent of the parties.

According to him, a meeting by the corporate lobby with higher-ups in the Government cannot be termed ‘criminal intent’.

The CBI Director had also taken a similar view, stating there was no evidence on record suggesting any misrepresentation of facts by Mittal.

Taking cognisance of the two reports, the Attorney General said: “There is no disagreement on this point between Director of Prosecution and the Director, CBI and, therefore, it is not for me to comment on the views of the executive officers of the CBI.”

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