The Centre for Public Interest Litigation, an NGO and a petitioner in the 2G spectrum allocation case, has sought the Supreme Court's direction to the CBI to investigate the allegations against some politicians including the late Pramod Mahajan, the then Telecom Minister, as well as telecom companies.
In an affidavit filed before the apex court, CPIL said: “One of the most important investigations that the CBI must be directed to make under the supervision of this court is how Pramod Mahajan, when he was the Telecom Minister, allegedly facilitated the conversion of limited mobility licence (WLL) to Reliance Infocomm Ltd to full mobility, which benefitted Reliance to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees, being the licence fees that they would have to pay in normal course for offering fully mobile services.”
The affidavit said the apex court had, on December 16 directed the CBI to investigate the allocation of licences and spectrum from 2001. CPIL said that from reports it transpired that Reliance allotted one crore shares to three companies at Re 1 each, as against the Rs 55 each paid by Reliance Industries themselves for the same shares at the same time. “Reliance admitted in its press release of February 15, 2005 that these shares were allotted to nominees of one Mr Ashish Deora. Now, Mr Deora had several close financial and personal connections with the Mahajan family. This shows that this transaction was intended as a bribe for getting permission to offer fully mobile services,” CPIL alleged.
CPIL also alleged that the then Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Mr Pradip Baijal, reversed TRAI's original stand of auctioning, and through a letter on November 14, 2003, to the Telecom Department said that the new Unified Access Services Licences can be issued at 2001 rates.
TRAI changed its stand without following any consultation process as envisaged in the TRAI Act, CPIL said, adding that soon after seven licences were issued to Tata and seven to Bharti, apart from others, at 2001-rates. “This had no approval of the Cabinet. The DoT did not announce any guidelines for this. It is pertinent to mention that Mr Pradip Baijal, after his retirement joined the Niira Radia Group, which has Tata as its client,” CPIL alleged.
It also claimed that the annexures to the Justice Patil Committee report now reveal how the dual technology operators jumped the queue for the allotment of spectrum thus defeating the stated policy of first-come-first-served (FCFS).
As on October 1, 2007, 575 applications were received. “Without dealing with the existing applications first, on October 19, 2007, a press release announced the policy for granting GSM spectrum to existing UASL operators,” CPIL alleged, adding Reliance was granted Letters of Intent (LoIs) on October 18, 2007 even before the policy was announced as is stated by the CAG report.
In the case of Tatas, their application came in on October 22, 2007, or three weeks after 575 applications had been received. The manner in which Tatas were allowed to get spectrum ahead of the 343 companies that were rejected is extremely questionable and defeats the stated FCFS policy, CPIL alleged.