Sibal favoured Reliance Infocomm, says NGO

The Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) said that it has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that the Telecom Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, “abused” his official position to benefit Reliance Infocomm.

The affidavit says he did so by closing the issue of “violation” of 2G spectrum licence conditions with only a penalty of Rs 5 crore. The CPIL, an NGO and a petitioner in the 2G spectrum case, is represented by advocate Mr Prashant Bhushan.

The CPIL has demanded a CBI probe into the incident. The 2G spectrum case will be heard by the apex court on July 11.

The affidavit said the Department of Telecom had issued notice for a penalty of Rs 50 crore.

Since violation of UASL conditions carried a penalty of Rs 50 crore per circle, if the same was imposed for all 13 circles in which Reliance Infocomm had USOF agreements, the fine would rise to Rs 650 crore, the CPIL alleged.

It said Mr Sibal over-ruled all the officers of the DoT and in effect reduced the penalty to only Rs 5 crore.

The NGO also claimed that Mr Anil Ambani, the Chairman of the ADA Group, was a real beneficiary of the 2G spectrum allocation. However, the CPIL said, Mr Ambani has not been chargesheeted.

The CPIL also alleged that Mr Dayanidhi Maran also abused his position as Telecom Minister to divert to his family-owned Sun TV hundreds of telephone lines of BSNL which were ostensibly provided to Mr Maran for his official use.

The CBI has been investigating this case from September 2007, but no action has been taken and apparently the investigation is still continuing, the CPIL said.

The CPIL also alleged that the Attorney General, Mr G.E. Vahanvati, during his tenure as the Solicitor General, disregarded rules and gave opinion to the Department of Telecom on the 2G spectrum allocation.

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