The Supreme Court (SC) will take a decision on whether to initiate proceedings against Bharti Airtel and its chairman Sunil Mittal on the matter of allocation of additional spectrum to the operator under the regime of National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The SC?s comments came following Central Bureau of Investigation?s (CBI) contention that the matter has been referred to the Attorney General of India for a legal opinion following emergence of differences between the investigating and prosecution wing of CBI on the issue.
A bench of justices comprising G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan further questioned CBI as to under what provision the matter has been referred to the Attorney General of India and whether it should not have been referred to the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) appointed by the bench. However, the bench directed the government to go ahead and seek the opinion of the Attorney General of India and adjourned the hearing on the matter.
The bench has listed the matter for next hearing on November 29, 2012.
The matter relates to CBI?s probe in to the allocation of spectrum under the NDA regime. Earlier, CBI filing its status report into the probe of spectrum allocation during former telecom minister Pramod Mahajan?s, tenure, stated that following CBI?s director (prosecution) disagreed with the investigators on filing the charge-sheet against the accused named in the FIR, the matter was referred to the Attorney General of India for his opinion.
However, while advocate Prashant Bhushan representing non-governmental organisation Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) contended that the entire hierarchy in the CBI was of the opinion of filing a charge sheet against Shymal Ghosh, former telecom secretary, and J R Gupta, deputy director general, value added services amongst others, the director (prosecution) CBI opposed the move.
CPIL has alleged that the investigating officers have found a loss of Rs 5.08 billion to the government on account of additional spectrum allotted to Bharti Airtel without following due process of rules and regulations for the allocation of spectrum.
