NEW DELHI: While the Supreme Court today came down heavily on former telecom minister A Raja, it has not found any fault on the part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the then finance minister P Chidambaram or the ministry he headed.

The judgement has strongly indicted Raja over the manner in which he manipulated the issue of licenses and ordered cancellation of the 122 2G licenses in 22 circles.

The two-member bench of Justices G S Singhvi and Ashok Ganguly found that telecom regulator Trai’s recommendations of 2007 on the policy of first-come first-serve basis was placed before the Telecom Commission in October but the four non- permanent members, including the Finance Secretary, were not even informed about the meeting.

A week later, Raja accepted the recommendations of the Telecom Commission and approved the Trai’s recommendation but did not get in touch with the ministry of finance to discuss and finalise the spectrum pricing formula.

“However, as the Minister of C IT (Raja) was very much concious of the fact that the secretary, finance, had objected to the allocation of 2G spectrum at the rates fixed in 2001, he did not consult the finance minister (Chidambaram) or the officers of the finance ministry,” the judgement said.

Raja sent a letter in November, 2007 to the Prime Minister saying the department of telecom has decided to continue with the existing policy. He did not bother to consider the suggestion made by the Prime Minister

Article source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-finds-no-fault-with-Manmohan-Chidambaram-in-2G-allocation/articleshow/11729595.cms

NEW DELHI: Former telecom minister A Raja, the prime accused facing trial in the 2G case, today completed one year in jail since his arrest in the high-profile scam.

Raja, who was the first one to be arrested in the case on February 2, last year, is languishing behind the bars as he has not yet moved any application for release on bail.

Besides Raja, former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura who too was arrested on February 2 last year, is still in jail as his bail applications have been rejected repeatedly by the trial court as well as the Delhi high court.

Barring Raja and Behura, all co-accused including DMK MP Kanimozhi, Raja’s former private secretary RK Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka have earlier been granted bail by the Supreme Court, Delhi high court and the trial court respectively.

The court on October 22, last year had framed charges against Raja and 16 others for offences including criminal breach of trust which entails a maximum punishment of life term.

The charges were framed under various provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, faking documents, abusing official position, getting bribe and criminal misconduct by public servant. These offences entail punishment ranging from six months in jail to life imprisonment.

Besides them, corporate honchos-Reliance ADA Group’s MD Gautam Doshi, group president Surendra Pipara and senior vice

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NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate today filed a charge sheet for alleged financial irregularities in the conduct of a premier event of the Commonwealth Games and named sacked OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi for allowing “unauthorised payments” along with five of his colleagues.

The complaint (equivalent of a charge sheet) was filed by the agency to its adjudicating authority here and alleges foreign exchange contraventions to the tune of about Rs 5 crore in the conduct of the Queens Baton Relay (QBR) held in 2009 in London.

The glitzy event was attended by President Pratibha Patil, Queen Elizabeth II and a host of top Indian athletes and Organising Committee (OC) officials.

The ED also named five OC officials apart from Kalmadi in its complaint — former secretary general Lalit Bhanot, director general V K Verma, deputy director general Sanjay Mahindroo, joint director general (accounts and finance) M Jaychandran and A K Mattoo.

Kalmadi, according to agency’s complaint, was named for providing his signatures in his “individual capacity” and allowing “unauthorised payments” of more than Rs 8 crore and few others for the conduct of the QBR and also side-stepping five other service providers in favour of a firm — AM Films and Cars limited.

The ED complaint also mentions how the OC violated its own charter for the event and hired luxury vehicles like Mercedes S-class, BMW-7 series thereby violating the authorisation for hiring only “mid-size” cars for ferrying

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NEW DELHI: In a huge embarrassment to the government and a jolt to the telecom sector, the Supreme Court today cancelled 122 2G licences granted during the tenure of former telecom minister A Raja declaring it as “illegal” and blamed the government’s flawed first-come-first served policy.

Bringing the curtains down on the controversial allocation by Raja in 2008, the court strongly indicted him over the manner in which he manipulated the issue of licenses and ordered that the licenses in 22 circles be sold by auction for which the Ttai will make fresh recommendations.

A two-judge bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly allowed the impugned licenses to run for four months after which the cancellation order will become operative.

The court imposed heavy costs of Rs five crore on Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt Ltd ( Swan Telecom Ltd), Unitech Wireless Group and Tata Teleservices Ltd, who were benefited by a “wholly arbitrary and unconstitutional” action of award of licenses to them and for off-loading their stakes for many thousand crores in the name of fresh infusion of equity or transfer of equity.

It ordered Loop Telecom Pvt Ltd, S-Tel, Allianz Infratech and Sistema Shyam Tele Services Ltd, who were also beneficiary of the decision, to pay a cost of Rs 50 lakhs each.

The apex court said the allocation of the 2G spectrum under Raja was “wholly arbitrary,

Article source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/2G-verdict-A-Raja-virtually-gifted-away-important-national-asset-says-Supreme-Court/articleshow/11728003.cms

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to revoke all 122 telecoms licences issued under a scandal-tainted 2008 sale.

India is divided into 22 telecoms zones and there are a total 281 zonal licences in the market of 894 million users and 15 mobile operators, led by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone’s India unit.

The Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) says that in 2008, when India issued 122 new telecoms licences, several rules were violated and bribes were paid to favour certain firms.

Several licences were issued to firms with no prior experience in the telecoms sector or were ineligible or had suppressed relevant facts, the CAG said in its report.

The violations cost the exchequer as much as $36 billion in lost revenue, the auditor said, equivalent to India’s defence budget.

Andimuthu Raja, the then telecoms minister and a member of the DMK in UPA government, has been charged with flouting telecoms rules and accepting bribes to favour some firms, and is in jail.

Following are the companies affected by Thursday’s ruling and the number of zonal licences issued to them in 2008.

UNITECH WIRELESS — 22 licences

Group companies of Indian realty firm Unitech Ltd that were given 22 telecoms licences had not fulfilled eligibility norms for getting these licences, the state auditor has said.

The companies had suppressed facts, had less share capital than required,

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