The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has said that it has no evidence of Anil Ambani, chairman, Reliance Communications (RCOM)?s direct involvement in the structuring of different companies and transfer of funds to Swan Telecom.
The CBI was filing its response to a note submitted by petitioner Prashant Bhushan in which he had alleged that it was impossible that three employees could have created a convoluted maze of companies to conceal Swan’s real ownership.
The CBI said that at the time of filing of applications to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for universal access service (UAS) licences, Swan Telecom?s shareholders included Tiger Traders (91.1 per cent) and Reliance Telecom (9.1 per cent). The shareholders of Tiger Traders included two companies, namely Zebra Consultants and Parrot Consultant. All these three companies held shares of each other in an inter-locking structure.
According to the CBI, on March 2, 2007, Tiger Traders invested Rs 955 million in the equity of Swan Telecom. These funds were ultimately sourced from Sonata Investments. Besides, a few small amounts were transferred to Tiger Traders from AAA Consultancy Services.
The agency said that Ambani and his wife were the original promoters of AAA Consultancy. However, they had transferred the shareholding of these companies to Tiger Traders, Zebra Consultants and Parrot Consultant between March and April, 2006, almost one year before Swan Telecom applied to DoT for 13 UAS licences.
Also, during the relevant period, when Swan Telecom applied for UAS licences and the funds were transferred from these companies to Tiger Traders, Ambani and his wife were neither shareholders in these companies nor were associated with the management of these companies.
