Vahanvati, Niira Radia among CBI witnesses in 2G case

Attorney General Goolam E Vahnavati and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia are among the 125 witnesses listed in the CBI chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam.

The name of government's top law officer figures as witness number 32 in the CBI chargesheet, while Radia figures in the list in the 44th position.

The first chargesheet in the 2G spectrum alloaction scam indicts former Telecom Minister A Raja and eight others and three companies for allegedly causing a loss of around Rs 31,000 crore in the issue of spectrum licences.

The others listed as witnesses in the chargesheet includes over 50 senior government officials, most of them belonging to the telecom ministry.

Besides various Telecom Ministry officials, others who figure in the list of witnesses in the CBI chargesheet, include dozens of senior corporate executives belonging to various telecom firms, including those of Loop Mobile India Limited, Idea Cellular Limited, Spice Global and Spice Communication, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Videocon Telecommunications etc.

The chargesheet has also listed the names of Delhi metropolitan magistrates Bhavna Kalia and Arvind Bansal, besides the names of half a dozen of CBI officers, including its SP Vivek Priyadarshi, who is actively involved in the investigation, as formal witnesses in the case.

The senior corporate honchos, who have figured as witnesses in the CBI chargesheet include S Tel Pvt Ltd's Chief Executive Officer Shamik Das, Loop Mobile India Ltd's Deputy General Manager K Sowmya Narayanan, Idea Cellular's Assistant Vice President Rahul Vatts, Spice Global Vice President (Corporate Affairs) Akhilesh Kumar Saxena, Tata Teleservices Ltd's Vice President (Corporate Regulatory Affairs) Anand Dalal and its Chief Corporate Regulatory Officer Rakesh Mehrotra.

The other corporate honchos, who are included in the list of witnesses are Unitech Ltd's former Chief Executive Mohit Gupta, Unitech Ltd Allianz Infrastructure Pvt Ltd's former Advisor Arun Kumar Dalmia and Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd Dy CEO T Narasimhan.

There are quite a few witnesses also belonging to the Reliance group such as Reliance (ADAG) group president A N Sethuraman, Reliance Capital Limited Assistant Vice President Anand Subramaniam, Reliance Communication General Manager (Commercial) Rajender Singhi, Reliance Infrastructure (ADAG group) General Manager Ashish Karyekar and its Senior Vice President (Accounts and Finance) Ashish Tambawala and Additional Vice President (A&F) Bharat Amberkar.

HDFC Bank's Vice President (Trade and Finance Department) Vradhrajan Srinivasan too figures in the list of witensses.