New Delhi, December 21
The CBI today filed a chargesheet in the court of Special Judge (2G Spectrum cases) against the then Secretary, Department of Telecom and Chairman, Telecom Commission and three telecom companies based in Delhi and Mumbai, in connection with alleged irregularities in the charging of spectrum fees and consequent loss of Rs 846.44 crore to public exchequer.

The charge sheet has been filed following direction of the Supreme Court to prosecute telecom firms and people responsible for allocation of 2G spectrum during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime after Attorney General GE Vahanvati gave his opinion on the alleged irregularities in awarding extra spectrum to the these companies during the tenure of the then Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan.

The CBI, in its 57-page charge sheet, named former telecommunications secretary Shyamal Ghosh and the three telecom firms — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India Limited and Hutchison Max Sterling — as accused for criminal conspiracy and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI alleged that the then Secretary, Department of Telecom in conspiracy with the then MoC and IT and the telecom companies based at Delhi and Mumbai through their representatives, had abused his official position as public servant and allegedly showed undue favour which caused loss of Rs 846.44 crore (approximately) to the government exchequer.

The CBI said that the telecom department had increased the base spectrum for telecom companies from 4.4 MhZ to 6.2 MhZ during Mahajan’s tenure (2001-2003) and also allocated extra spectrum on subscriber-based criteria. "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.