Radia tapes: CBI likely to quiz Ratan Tata, Cyrus Mistry

The Central Bureau of Investigation is likely to question industrialist Ratan Tata and Tata group Chairman Cyrus Mistry in connection to its probe into the taped conversations of former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia.

The agency had registered 14 Preliminary Enquiries (PEs) on October 23, on the directions of the Supreme Court. The CBI's Chennai branch had lodged an inquiry into the supply of low-floor buses by Tata Motors to the Tamil Nadu government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. Radia was also named in a PE registered on the alleged market manipulation and hammering of stocks of Unitech.

A CBI official said Tata and Mistry will be questioned in the "due course and no date has been fixed yet." CBI sources in February had said the agency had not found any instance of criminality in any of the fourteen PEs yet and they may close the cases. Earlier, the CBI had said the taped conversations were mostly "big talk" and involved a lot of "bragging". However, the agency is continuing its probe and will tell the apex court of its progress.

The two-judge Bench, led by G S Singhvi, had criticised the government for its reluctance to probe aspects other than the 2G spectrum case based on Radia's conversations.

"Virtually in every government field, private persons -you call them liaison officers or middlemen - are present in every nook and corner," the Bench said. It also said Radia's conversations were not limited to the telecom sector. These had information on trans-border transactions, somebody taking over a company and other serious issues.

The agency had named Radia, with a former civil aviation secretary and Delhi Duty Free (in Indira Gandhi International Airport's T3 terminal), in its preliminary inquiry into the working of touts and middlemen and kickbacks in the aviation sector.