Airtel, Voda charged in spectrum allocation in NDA regime

Three telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel  and Vodafone India, were today chargesheeted by the CBI in connection with alleged irregularities in the allocation of additional spectrum during the NDA regime which had resulted in a loss of Rs 846 crore to the exchequer.

The agency filed its charge sheet, also naming former telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh as accused, before Special CBI Judge O P Saini who fixed January 14 for consideration of the charge sheet.

The charge sheet named three telecom firms -- Bharti Cellular Ltd, Hutchison Max Pvt Ltd (now known as Vodafone India Ltd) and Sterling Cellular Ltd (now known as Vodafone Mobile Service Ltd) -- as accused in the case. CBI refrained from mentioning the name of then Telecom Minister late Pramod Mahajan as accused in the charge sheet which also did not mention any charge against the promoters of Airtel and Vodafone.

All the accused have been chargesheeted for the offence of criminal conspiracy (120-B) of the IPC and under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency, in its 57-page charge sheet, said the decision regarding allocation of additional spectrum to these telecom firms was taken in "undue haste" in pursuance to the conspiracy hatched amongst Mahajan, Ghosh and these companies.

"Investigation has thus established that the aforesaid decision dated January 31, 2002 (regarding allocation of additional spectrum) was taken in undue haste pursuant to the criminal conspiracy hatched amongst the accused public servants, late Pramod Mahajan, the then MOC&IT, Shyamal Ghosh, the then secretary DoT and said accused telecom companies," it said.