New Delhi: A Delhi court yesterday summoned Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal and Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia in a case relating to alleged irregularities in allocation of excess spectrum during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.
Also summoned were former telecom secretary Shyamal Ghosh and Asim Ghose, formerly with Hutchison Max Telecom, now known as Vodafone India. Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) judge O P Saini issued summons for April 11 after taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed against mobile firms Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Sterling Cellular for the alleged irregularities.
On December 21 last year, the CBI named Shyamal Ghosh and the three telecom firms as accused in the 57-page charge sheet for criminal conspiracy as also under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act for causing a loss of about Rs846 crore to the exchequer.
The agency told the court that additional spectrum was allotted July 17, 2002, to Bharti Cellular (now Bharti Airtel) and Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone Mobile Service) for the Delhi metro area, and Hutchison Max (now Vodafone India) for Mumbai metro area. The late Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan was the telecom minister then.
The judge said Sunil Mittal was chairman-cum-managing director of Bharti, Asim Ghosh was managing director of Hutchison Max and Ruia a director in Sterling Cellular — and they were all prima facie in control of affairs of the respective companies.
“As such they represent the directing mind and will of each company and their state of mind is the state of mind of the companies. “They are/were the ‘alter-ego’ of their respective companies,” judge Saini said. “In this fact/situation, the acts of the companies are to be attributed and imputed to them. Consequently, I find enough material on record to proceed against them.” IANS
