New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will on Wednesday file a status report on its investigation into the 2G spectrum scam in the Supreme Court.
According to reports, the central investigating agency, while updating the apex court on the matter, may also reveal details about former Telecom Minister A Raja`s foreign bank accounts.
The high profile case, which has netted 14 people, including former telecom minister A Raja, his aides and several corporate executives in jail, is being monitored by the SC.
Till date the CBI has filed only two charge sheets and the indication is that the third one is going to be delayed. The CBI was supposed to probe the acceptance and implementation of the dual technology policy whereby CDMA operators were given GSM spectrum at 2001 rates.
The SC had specifically asked it to register an FIR in the matter. However, it seems that the central probe agency has not worked in this direction as much.
The agency is likely to request for more time to look into fresh allegations made against telecom major Essar.
Apart from four companies which were given dual technology licenses, there were nine companies involved in the 2G scam. A total of 122 licenses were issued to these nine firms by Raja in January 2008. Yet, the CBI till date has only filed one charge sheet and a supplementary charge sheet. The first one mentions only Raja, his former aides Siddhartha Behura and RK Chandolia and some officials of Swan, Unitech and Anil Ambani’s ADAG. The ADAG officials have chargesheeted not for dual technology case but on alleged links with Swan.
The supplementary charge sheet is about the alleged kickback paid by Swan Telecom outfits to DMK’s Kalaignar TV. It has failed to track any other kickbacks where the other companies may have been involved.
Most curiously, it so far failed to file any charge sheet against other beneficiary companies like Datacom, Loop Telecom, S-Tel, and Allianz (later merged with Swan).
Besides, the CBI is yet to ascertain the role of the DoT officials in not doing anything on their failure to monitor the roll out obligations of the new licensees. The needle of suspicion also points to the former DoT secretary PJ Thomas, who was in office for most of this period.
The high profile case, which has netted 14 people, including former telecom minister A Raja, his aides and several corporate executives in jail, is being monitored by the SC.
Till date the CBI has filed only two charge sheets and the indication is that the third one is going to be delayed. The CBI was supposed to probe the acceptance and implementation of the dual technology policy whereby CDMA operators were given GSM spectrum at 2001 rates.
The SC had specifically asked it to register an FIR in the matter. However, it seems that the central probe agency has not worked in this direction as much.
The agency is likely to request for more time to look into fresh allegations made against telecom major Essar.
Apart from four companies which were given dual technology licenses, there were nine companies involved in the 2G scam. A total of 122 licenses were issued to these nine firms by Raja in January 2008. Yet, the CBI till date has only filed one charge sheet and a supplementary charge sheet. The first one mentions only Raja, his former aides Siddhartha Behura and RK Chandolia and some officials of Swan, Unitech and Anil Ambani’s ADAG. The ADAG officials have chargesheeted not for dual technology case but on alleged links with Swan.
The supplementary charge sheet is about the alleged kickback paid by Swan Telecom outfits to DMK’s Kalaignar TV. It has failed to track any other kickbacks where the other companies may have been involved.
Most curiously, it so far failed to file any charge sheet against other beneficiary companies like Datacom, Loop Telecom, S-Tel, and Allianz (later merged with Swan).
Besides, the CBI is yet to ascertain the role of the DoT officials in not doing anything on their failure to monitor the roll out obligations of the new licensees. The needle of suspicion also points to the former DoT secretary PJ Thomas, who was in office for most of this period.