Supreme Court asks CBI to proceed against telcos

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to proceed further based on its Director’s decision to take action against telecom companies and individuals for alleged irregularities in allocation of additional spectrum when Pramod Mahajan was Telecom Minister during the NDA regime.

A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and K.S. Singhvi gave CBI the nod after perusing its status report on the opinion of Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati on proceeding against the telecom companies and certain individuals pursuant to registration of a first information report in November 2011.

The Bench told senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for the CBI, to initiate action as per the opinion of the Director, who is due to demit office on Friday.

On the apex court’s directions, the CBI had started investigating the spectrum scam for the period 2001 to 2007. After investigation, the CBI filed an FIR on November 17, 2011 against Shyamal Ghosh, the then Telecom Secretary; J.R. Gupta, Senior DDG, DoT; Bharti Cellular Ltd, Delhi; Vodafone Essar Ltd, Mumbai; Vodafone Essar Mobile, Delhi; other officials of DoT, and others.

The Centre for Public Interest Litigation filed an application alleging inaction by the CBI and said during the investigation, the Investigating Officer found a loss of Rs 508.22 crore to the Government with an active role played by Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel, in connivance with the former Minister late Pramod Mahajan and Shyamal Ghosh, Secretary, Telecom (retired).

The IO found there was undue haste shown on January 31, 2002 in this matter by the Telecom Minister and Telecom Secretary to favour Sunil Mittal to boost investments in his company through the IPO, which was open (from January 28, 2002 to February 2, 2002) but did not receive encouraging response and needed positive news on spectrum.

The criteria for allocation of further spectrum was reduced from 9 lakh subscribers to 4 lakh subscribers, as only Bharti had met those criteria by that time. Accordingly, the IO rightly recommended filing of a charge-sheet against the accused, including Mittal. The said report was accepted by the IO.

However, the Director of Prosecution (DoP) and his junior Special PP have opposed the report. The CBI Director has not taken any position on the issue of Mittal and has sought legal opinion using the excuse of “difference of opinion”. Since there was a difference of opinion between the two wings of the agency on filing of the charge-sheet against the accused named in the FIR, the matter was referred to the Attorney General for his opinion.

Meanwhile the present Director decided to prosecute some companies and officials. The AG gave his opinion, which was submitted to the court in a sealed cover. On perusing the report the Bench asked the CBI to proceed further, in accordance with the CBI Director’s decision.