A special court conducting the trial on 2G spectrum case has termed a chargesheet filed by ‘erring’ CBI officials on an alleged scam in the NDA era as ‘false and fabricated’. Additionally, the court gave a clean chit to two major telcos Airtel and Vodafone along with the then Telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh in the case relating to irregularities in the auction for additional 2G spectrum in 2002-03.
The court directed the CBI chief to conduct an inquiry into the matter as the Special CBI Judge O P Saini stated in his judgement that the CBI tired to mislead the court and the chargesheet filed was full of “distorted facts”.
This irregularities were thought to have cost the exchequer a loss to the tune of 846 crore rupees.
This judgement is thought to have caused the Congress party a huge embarrassment as former Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal earlier alleged that there was a 2G scam even during the NDA rule.
The allegation
According to the CBI, Airtel and Vodafone were unworthy beneficiaries of DoT’s (Department of Telecommunication) move to allocate spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz by the late Pramad Mahajan then Telecom Minister and Ghosh, the department secretary. The move was taken reportedly in a matter of haste bypassing the Telecom Commission, TRAI, and finance and wireless advisors.
In turn it was alleged that the Mahajan-Ghosh duo granted the additional spectrum with a usage charge of 1 percent of their adjusted gross revenue in place of of 2 percent.