The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the income tax department and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to probe a 2007 transaction where Tata Realty and Infrastructure (TRIL) had extended a Rs 17 billion loan to Unitech.
The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, who are probing the 2G spectrum issue, are also investigating the deal between these two real estate companies. The corporate affairs ministry will investigate allegations that the deal involved financial irregularities, the income tax department will probe if there has been a tax evasion, while the RBI will check if the trail of funds between both companies had violated FEMA and money laundering laws.
DoT had sent out this communication on May 30 and asked these bodies to take appropriate action. The Tata-Unitech deal also figured in the presentation that was made by the central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director A.P. Singh to the Joint Parliamentary Committee earlier this week.
The CBI presentation stated that TRIL and Unitech had inked an MoU for a land deal on October 7, 2010, and on October 10, Rs 17 billion was given to Unitech.
The presentation further adds that later, TRIL had identified only 44.15 acres valued at Rs 6.01 billion for its project, thus modifying the MoU between both companies and Unitech returning the remaining amount of Rs 10.98 billion, with interest between June 2008 and January 2011.
According to DoT, members of Parliament had approached it, seeking a probe into the deal, which led to the department asking these agencies to look into the issue.
