Bharti Airtel plunges 3% on CBI probe

Bharti Airtel is trading lower by nearly 3% at Rs 386 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at company's office in Gurgaon.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar have been named in a first information report (FIR) filed by the CBI on Saturday, over alleged irregularities in spectrum allocation. This time, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime during Pramod Mahajan’s tenure as telecom minister has come under attack.

An FIR was also filed against former Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary Shyamal Ghosh and former deputy director general of Department of Telecom (DoT) JR Gupta in the same case, alleging criminal conspiracy under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The stock opened at Rs 384 and touched the low of Rs 380 in the opening deals. As many as 1,06,000 shares have already changed hands compared to its two-week average of 4,53,000 shares.