The Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), a petitioner in the 2G spectrum allocation case, has requested an investigation of the allegations against several politicians, including the late Pramod Mahajan, the then telecom minister, say news reports.
In an affidavit filed before the apex court, CPIL said that one of the most important investigations that the CBI must be directed to make under the supervision of the Supreme Court is how Pramod Mahajan, when he was the telecom minister, allegedly facilitated the conversion of a limited mobility licence (WLL) to Reliance Infocomm Limited to full mobility, which benefitted Reliance financially.
CPIL added that according to reports, it transpired that Reliance allotted 10 million shares to three companies at Re 1 each, as against the Rs 55 each paid by Reliance Industries themselves for the same shares at the same time. It added that the company had, in a press release dated February 2005, admitted that these shares were allotted to nominees of one Ashish Deora. Also, Deora had several close financial and personal connections with the Mahajan family, which implies that this transaction was intended as a bribe for getting permission to offer fully mobile services, CPIL elaborated.
CPIL also alleged that the then Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Pradip Baijal, reversed TRAI’s original stand on auctioning spectrum, and through a letter on November 14, 2003, to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that the new unified access services licences could be issued at 2001 rates.
TRAI changed its stand without following any consultation process as envisaged in the TRAI Act, CPIL said, adding that soon after seven licences were issued to Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and seven to Bharti airtel at 2001-rates. It also claimed that the annexures to the Justice Patil Committee report now reveal how the dual technology operators jumped the queue for the allotment of spectrum thus defeating the stated policy of first-come-first-served (FCFS).
As on October 1, 2007, 575 applications were received. The CPIL said that without dealing with the existing applications first, on October 19, 2007, a press release announced the policy for granting GSM spectrum to existing UASL operators, adding Reliance was granted Letters of Intent (LoIs) on October 18, 2007 even before the policy was announced as is stated by the CAG report.
In TTSL?s case, their application was submitted on October 22, 2007, or three weeks after 575 applications had been received. The manner in which TTSL was allowed spectrum ahead of the 343 companies that were rejected is extremely questionable and defeats the stated FCFS policy, CPIL alleged.
