CBI likely to file charge sheet in spectrum case in mid Oct

CBI, which is giving final touches to its charge sheet, has received submissions from Bharti Airtel, one of the companies named in its FIR, which are being looked into, CBI sources said without elaborating.

They said the charge sheet would be finalised by mid- October by the agency.

CBI had registered a case against Shyamal Ghosh, the then Secretary in the Telecom Ministry headed by late Pramod Mahajan, J R Gupta, who was the Deputy Director General (Value Added Services) and two Telecom service providers Airtel and Vodafone for alleged irregularities in grant of additional spectrum.

CBI had alleged in its FIR that Department of Telecom had increased the base spectrum for telecom companies from 4.4 MhZ to 6.2 MhZ during Mahajan's tenure from 2001 to 2003 and also allocated extra spectrum on subscriber-based criteria.

The case against the then DoT official, Bharti Cellular (now known as Bharti Airtel), and Hutchinson Max and Sterling Cellular (now known as Vodafone Essar) was registered under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, the CBI alleged. Gupta retired as Director, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. More