Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a charge sheet against Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India Ltd and Sterling Cellular Limited on Friday.
The charge sheet is filed for alleged irregularities in allocation of excess spectrum during the NDA regime.
CBI in a 32-page charge sheet told Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini that former telecommunications secretary Shyamal Ghosh and late Pramod Mahajan, then telecom minister in a criminal conspiracy allotted addition spectrum to the telecom companies in a hurried manner and in contravention with the then telecom policy.
This caused a loss of about Rs.846 crore to the national exchequer.
The charge sheet stated, "Investigation has revealed that Shyamal Ghosh, then chairman of Telecom Commission and secretary DoT, in conspiracy with late Pramod Mahajan, then telecom minister and the accused beneficiary companies i.e Hutchison Max and Sterling Cellular and Bharti Airtel Ltd through their representatives, abused his official position as public person and showed undue favour which caused loss of Rs.846.44 crore to the government exchequer and corresponding undue gain to the aforesaid telecom companies".
The agency told the court that additional spectrum was allotted on July 17, 2002 to Bharti Cellular Limited (now Bharti Airtel) and Sterling Cellular Limited (now Vodafone Mobile Service Limited) for the Delhi metro area, and Hutchison Max (now Vodafone India Limited) for Mumbai metro area.
These telecom companies were charged additional 1 percent of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for allocating additional spectrum from 6.2 MHz up to 10 MHz (paired) even as under the then existing norms, the companies were chargeable additional 2 percent of the AGR.
The CBI told the court that former deputy director general (VAS) cell of DoT and former director of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), J.R. Gupta, named in the FIR as one of the accused, has been made as one of the 73 witnesses in the case.
The court fixed Jan 14, 2013 for consideration of the charge sheet.
The Supreme Court on Nov 29 directed the CBI to prosecute telecom firms and people behind allocation of 2G spectrum during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime after Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati gave his opinion on the alleged irregularities in awarding extra spectrum to the these companies during Mahajan's tenure.
(with inputs from IANS)
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