2G Scam: CBI questions Tata, S Tel, Spice officials

New Delhi, Feb 24 (PTI) Seven top executives of majororganisations including the Tata group were today questionedby CBI in connection with its probe in the 2G spectrum scam.

CBI officials said R Krishna Kumar and Sanjay BUgale, Chairman and Managing Director respectively of TataRealty and Infrastructure, Dilip Modi, Managing Director,Spice Telecom, S Sarvana, Director and V Srinivasan, GroupChief Executive Officer of Siva Group of Companies, ShamikDas, CEO, S Tel and Sandip Basu, CEO of Loop Telecom werequizzed for over four hours at the agency''s office here.

They were asked to clarify the roles played by theirrespective organisations and possible stakes in other telecomcompanies that may have acted as a front for getting secondgeneration technology licenses from Telecom ministry.

Loop had got licenses for 21 circles when the spectrumwas allocated during the first stint of jailed former TelecomMinister A Raja between September 2007-January 2008.

The two officials of Tata Realty and Infrastructure wereasked about the purported Rs 1,600 crore loan extended toUnitech to procure the spectrum.

This is the second time that Ubale and Basu have beenquizzed by the CBI in connection with the firm''s allegedlinkages with Unitech, one of the two companies which havebeen mentioned in the FIR filed by the agency on October 21,2009, they said.

The CBI had earlier questioned Sanjay Chandra of Unitechon issues relating to offloading of majority stake to Norwaybased company Telenor after getting 2G spectrum license.

CBI is probing whether Tata Real Estate had paid Rs 1,600crore to Unitech for a land deal at a time when the the realestate company was applying for 2G license in 2007.

Unitech has claimed that it has been cooperating with allinvestigating agencies from the very beginning as it hasnothing to hide.

The charges against Unitech, according to CBI''s FIR, wasthat it offloaded over 60 per cent of its stake to Telenor andearned a profit of 267 per cent even before the serviceroll-out.

"M/s Unitech was alloted UAS licences for 22 circles forRs 1658 crore. It offloaded its 60 per cent of shares in thelicences to Telenor of Norway for Rs 6100 crore even beforethe roll-out," the FIR said.

According to the FIR, "estimated loss to the governmentby grant of licences to these two companies (Swan and Unitech)alone comes to Rs 7,105 crore. On pro-rata basis, theestimated loss for all the 122 circles is more than Rs 22,000crore." More PTI ABS AKV SKL VMN