Story goes that the owner of one of the top Indian telecom companies called Ms Niira Radia sometime in 2007 and offered the moon for taking on his company as her client.

But that would have meant dumping the Tata Group, a company which gave Ms Radia her first big break in the PR business. She refused to accept the offer and continued with the Tatas. Over the next few months the Kenyan-born and London-educated corporate lobbyist bagged her next major client – India's biggest corporate – Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries.

Ms Radia, who is in her fifties, moved to London from Kenya in the 1970s and schooled at the Haberdashers' Aske's in northern London. She graduated from the University of Warwick and got married to UK businessman Mr Janak Radia, a Gujarati, whom she later divorced and moved to India in the mid-nineties.

She started off as Sahara's liaison officer and soon became India representative of Singapore Airlines, KLM, UK Air. She also tried to float an airline, Crown Air, in 2000, but the plan did not take off.

In 2001, she set up Vaishnavi Communications, followed by Noesis, Vitcom and Neucom Consulting.

Although her initial ventures bombed, yet by 2007 Ms Radia had become one of the most sought after corporate lobbyist in the country. Not only did she have a successful PR business, she also managed to rope in top retired bureaucrats including former TRAI Chairman Mr Pradip Baijal to start a policy advocacy agency – Neosys – that looked after Government affairs.

But more than her sudden rise as a powerful lobbyist, it was her fall that made her a household name.

That happened when a news magazine published taped phone conversations. The 5,800 tapes revealed how Ms Radia hobnobbed with top politicians, bureaucrats and the media.

While some say what she did was not professional others say that she was just doing her job – which was to protect the interest of her clients. Though the jury is still out on that one, whoever fills in for Ms Radia's organisations, will have a tough task.

Tatas have already appointed Rediff PR according to reports, an agency which earlier did PR for Mr Sunil Mittal's Bharti Group.

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