CBI files charges against Manoj Modi in call re-routing case

The CBI has filed a chargesheet against Manoj Modi and five others in a case relating to masking of international calls as local by Reliance Infocomm when it was controlled by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL).

The CBI took up the investigation of the company in 2006, a year after Mukesh and his younger brother Anil reached a family settlement to divide the Reliance empire, as part of which the Reliance Infocomm went to Anil. The company has since been rechristened Reliance Communications.

CBI filed the chargesheet in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, Chennai, under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and other Sections of Indian Telegraph Act and Information Technology Act.

Besides Modi, CBI named Akhil Gupta, Shankar Adawal, Pankaj Powar, K R Raju and Bhagwan Das Khurana of M/s Reliance Infocomm in the chargesheet.

Gupta has since left the Mukesh Ambani group and is now heading Blackstone, a leading American private equity firm.

The case relates to manipulation and tampering of calling lines identification of ISD calls by Reliance Infocomm Ltd and thereby, passing off international calls as local ones and causing loss to the government and its PSUs, BSNL and MTNL, to the tune of several crores of rupees.

When contacted, a RIL spokesperson said: "We are not aware of any such development."