20, నవంబర్ 2011, ఆదివారం

The CBI has registered a case against Airtel, Vodafone,and ex-DoT Secretary Sri Shyamal Ghosh. It excluded Sri Pramod Mahajan the then Telecom Minister since he expired.It was alleged that the then Secretary(Telecom) and the then DDG(VAS), DoT entered into a criminal conspiracy with the three beneficiary private companies and abused their official position. They took a hurried decision, with the approval of the then Minister of Communications Sri Pramod Mahajan on 31/01/2002 to allocate additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz in violation of the report of a technical committee. They charged spectrum fee of an incremental 1% on AGR(Adjusted Gross Revenue) only for allotting additional spectrum from 6.2 MHz up to 10 MHz instead of charging incremental 1% AGR on allotment of spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz and incremental 2% AGR on spectrum beyond 8 MHz, as applicable in normal prudence. This resulted in a loss of Rs 508 crores to the exchequer. The CBI raided the offices of Vodafone in Mumbai and Airtel in Gurgaon on 19/11/2011 to search regarding the irregularities. Responding to this incidence, the Airtel and Vodafone representatives said they committed no irregularities in the spectrum allocation issue. The BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar issued statement on 19/11/2011 defending the decisions of the NDA Government when Pramod Mahajan was the Communications Minister. He told that the fresh case against Vodafone and Airtel was an effort to mislead the 2G spectrum investigations. But whatever the Vodafone, Airtel and BJP may say, it is on record that the one man committee with Justice Shivraj Patil in its report submitted in February 2011 had identified 25 instances during 2001 to 2009, both under NDA and UPA, where there are deviations and violations from the laid down procedures. The report put the old and new operators in the dock because every one got additional spectrum based on the flawed procedure. The report further put the BJP led NDA Government on the back foot for omissions committed between 2001 and 2004. It stated that in October 2003, the then communications minister approved the first come-first served policy for grant of licenses even though the TRAI and the Cabinet earlier suggested that new players should be introduced through multi-staged bidding process. (This


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