According to CBI, mahajan’s largess to these companies caused an “undue
pecuniary benefit of Rs 506 crore to them
which the department of telecom would have earned.
Some of the associates of Late Pramod Mahajan were also under the
scanner of the investigative agency and the Income tax department. It is learnt
that a very close associate of Pramod Mahajan had been summoned for questioning
by the government agencies some time ago.
No doubt the two private companies including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone
India (earlier known as Hutchison Max & Sterling Cellular), may be
chargesheeted along with some key officials of the time when Mahajan was the
Telecom Minister in January 2002.
The investigating agency had registered a case against Shyamal Ghosh,
the then telecom secretary, and has found that the senior officer, along with
other DoT officials, had bypassed the wireless advisor and a technical
committee at DoT on the issue of pricing and allocation of additional spectrum
to telecom companies.
During the investigation, the CBI had also carried out raids at
the offices of Bharti and Vodafone.The houses of various government officials
were also searched. “ During the investigation, we recovered certain
incriminating documents like technical reports and communication between the
minister and his officials that indicate that the companies benefited,” a CBI
officer said.
The CBI is evaluating the possibility of naming the companies that have been investigated in this regard— Bharti Airtel and Vodafone— but this hasn’t been finalised yet. The CBI has alleged that top officials of the telecom department conspired with the companies to grant them additional spectrum at throwaway prices.
