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Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's BJP-led NDA govt was in charge at the Centre then.
The CBI in its charge sheet filed before Special CBI Judge O P Saini named as accused Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd and Hutchison Max and Sterling Cellular, retired IAS and former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh for alleged irregularities in grant of additional spectrum.
J R Gupta, former Deputy Director General (VAS) cell of DoT and former Director of BSNL, who was named in the FIR as one of the accused, has been made as one of the 73 witnesses in the case, the CBI told the court.
The agency said no action has been taken against former telecom minister Pramod Mahajan and no charges have been found against the promoters of Airtel and Vodafone.
The court has fixed January 14 for consideration of the charge sheet.
The agency alleged in the chargesheet that the DoT had increased the base spectrum for telecom companies from 4.4 MHz to 6.2 MHz during Mahajan's tenure and also allocated extra spectrum on subscriber-based criteria.
It alleged that Mahajan had allotted additional spectrum to these companies in a hurried manner and in contravention with the then telecom policy.
The accused have been charge sheeted under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act relating to misconduct by public servant by accepting illegal gratification by abusing his official position.
"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 crores to the government exchequer and corresponding undue gain to the aforesaid telecom companies," it said.
The agency said this included incidental gains to other telecom companies by charging additional one per cent of AGR instead of charging the required additional two per cent of AGR for allocation of additional spectrum from 6.2 MHz up to
10 MHz.".
Highlights
* CBI files charge sheet in Delhi court on allocation of additional spectrum during NDA regime.
* Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's BJP-led NDA govt was in charge at the Centre then.
* CBI names ex-DoT Secretary Shyamal Ghosh and 3 telecom firms as accused in charge sheet
* Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd and Hutchison Max & Sterling Cellular named as accused in CBI charge sheet.
* All the accused have been booked for criminal conspiracy and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act
* CBI pegs the loss to exchequer at Rs 846 crore on spectrum issue during NDA regime
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Why NDA should be above law?Why there should be a differnet yardstick for NDA?Whether constitution provides immunity to the leaders of NDA?
I won't be surprised if UPA govt decides to file a charge sheet on RAVAN for abducting SITA! And HANUMAN for violating environment rules by uprooting a hill and carrying it away ! And KRISHNA for attempt to kill a serpent thereby violating rules of animal safety/ killing a rare spice Gaddis ke liye KUCHH bhi kar sakti hai ye UPA govt !,
Shameless Govt, using hopeless CBI to make allegations and acting on them in order to gain some points over rival political party. Time for this Govt to go and give place to new faces who work for development and upliftment of common man. How can one party screw up such a big country for so long and still be in power. Its only because it managed to keep its people ignorant and kept them divided for decades. Shame on Congress. Shame on the people who cast their votes for them. I hope they change.
Instead of pulling legs of each other for the revenue losses the Gov. must concentrate on the revenue losses at the Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Kandla, etc air port and sea port. Rampant corruption daily basis. The passengers are harrased in view of centuries old rules and regulation. The new rules are for bribery collection.
