India’s federal investigation agency has filed the third charge sheet in the 2G spectrum scam trial in a Delhi court against five top executives of the Essar Group and Loop Telecom.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating against Essar Group promoters Ravi Ruia and Anshuman Ruia, the group’s Director (Strategy and Planning) Vikars Saraf, and the promoters of Loop Telecom I.P. Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan. Charges have also been filed against Loop Telecom Pvt. Ltd., Loop Mobile India Ltd. and Essar Tele Holding.
According to the CBI, Loop was not entitled to the UAS licenses as it was a part of the Essar Group, which also owned 33% of Vodafone-Essar. “The CBI has been pursuing the theory that the Essar Group violated telecom licence conditions that prohibit mobile companies from holding more than 10% stake in two service providers,” according to the Economic Times.
“During investigation, an allegation surfaced that a Mumbai-based private telecommunication firm, which had obtained 21 UAS Licenses and Spectrum from DOT in 2008-09, was a front company of another Mumbai based Telecom Corporate Group and was being controlled by it under a corporate veil in violation of Clause-8 of the UASL Guidelines,” the investigation agency said. “The investigation has established that the said telecom private firm was an ineligible company to get the said licenses.”
CBI went ahead with the charge sheet despite the Indian Law Ministry’s contention that there was lack of enough evidence to file criminal charges against the Essar Group promoters. Strangely, the Law Ministry’s contention was based on a representation by Essar.
“While the Director of Prosecution was not in favour of chargesheeting Essar and Loop, CBI Director AP Singh and investigating officers wanted to prosecute both the companies and their promoters,” according to Tehelka, a leading weekly magazine.
Essar Group has said that “the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General have gone contrary to the opinion given by Ministry of Law and Justice and Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The CBI has also gone against their internal legal advice.”
The group denied any wrongdoing and stated that it had complied with all the conditions of telecom licenses.
“We would like to reiterate that Essar has complied with all conditions of clause 8 under UASL guidelines (dealing with cross-holding) in totality and all the facts which have been given at the time of submitting the application for telecom licence i.e, shareholding/ownership have been independently verified by the government agencies,” Essar Group said.
