2G spectrum scam

The 2G spectrum scam was an indian telecommunications scam and political scandal in which politicians and government officials under the Indian National Congress (Congress) coalition government undercharged mobile telephone companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they then used to create 2G spectrum subscriptions for cell phones. The difference between the money collected and that mandated to be collected was estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India at 1.76 trillion (US$26 billion), based on 2010 3G and BWA spectrum-auction prices.[1] In a chargesheet filed on 2 April 2011 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI, the investigating agency), the loss was pegged at 309845.5 million (US$4.6 billion).[2] In a 19 August 2011 reply to the CBI, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the government had gained over 30 billion (US$440 million) by selling 2G spectrum.[2] Minister of Communications & IT Kapil Sibal said in a 2011 press conference that "zero loss" was incurred by distributing 2G licenses on a first-come-first-served basis.[3]

On 2 February 2012, the Supreme Court of India ruled on a public interest litigation (PIL) related to the 2G spectrum scam. The court declared the allotment of spectrum "unconstitutional and arbitrary", cancelling the 122 licenses issued in 2008 under A. Raja (Minister of Communications & IT from 2007 to 2009), the primary official accused.[4] According to the court, Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away important national asset[s]."[5] The zero-loss theory was discredited[6] on 3 August 2012 when, after a Supreme Court directive, the government of India revised the base price for 5-MHz 2G spectrum auctions to 140 billion (US$2.1 billion), raising its value to about 28 billion (US$410 million) per MHz (near the Comptroller and Auditor General estimate of 33.5 billion (US$490 million) per MHz).[7][8]

Although the policy for awarding licences was first-come, first-served, Raja changed the rules so it applied to compliance with conditions instead of the application itself.[9] On 10 January 2008, companies were given only a few hours to supply Letters of Intent and payments; some executives were allegedly tipped off by Raja, and they (and the minister) were imprisoned.[9] In 2011 Time ranked the scam second on their "Top 10 Abuses of Power" list, behind the Watergate scandal.[10][11][12]

Background

India is divided into 22 telecommunications zones, with 281 zonal licenses.[13] In 2008, 122 new second-generation 2G Unified Access Service (UAS) licenses were granted to telecom companies on a first-come, first-served basis at the 2001 price. According to the CBI charge sheet, several laws were violated and bribes paid to favour certain firms in granting 2G spectrum licenses. According to a CAG audit, licenses were granted to ineligible corporations, those with no experience in the telecom sector (such as Unitech and Swan Telecom)[14] and those who had concealed relevant information.[15] Although former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh advised Raja to allot 2G spectrum transparently and revise the license fee in a November 2007 letter, Raja rejected many of Singh's recommendations.[16] In another letter that month, the Ministry of Finance expressed procedural concerns to the DOT;[16] these were ignored, and the cut-off date was moved forward from 1 October 2007 to 25 September.[16] On 25 September, the DOT announced on its website that applicants filing between 3:30 and 4:30 pm that day would be granted licenses.[16] Although the corporation was ineligible, Swan Telecom was granted a license[14] for 15.37 billion (US$230 million) and sold a 45-percent share to the UAE-based Etisalat for 42 billion (US$620 million).[14] Unitech Wireless (a subsidiary of the Unitech Group) obtained a license for 16.61 billion (US$240 million), selling a 60-percent share for 62 billion (US$910 million) to Norway-based Telenor.[14]

This is a list of companies who received 2G licenses during Raja's term as telecom minister;[17][18] the licenses were later cancelled by the Supreme Court:[19][20]

Company Telecom regions # of licenses Remarks
Adonis Projects Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (East) 6 Adonis Projects, Nahan Properties, Aska Projects, Volga Properties, Azare Properties & Hudson Properties were acquired by Unitech. Since Unitech Infrastructure and Unitech Builders & Estates were subsidiaries of Unitech Group, in 2008 Unitech had 22 2G licenses. Later that year, Telenor bought a majority share in the telecom company from the Unitech Group and now provides service as Uninor with 22 licences.
Nahan Properties Assam, Bihar, North East, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh (east), West Bengal 6
Aska Projects Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka 3
Volga Properties Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra 3
Azure Properties Kolkata 1
Hudson Properties Delhi 1
Unitech Builders & Estates Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) 1
Unitech Infrastructures Mumbai 1
Loop Telecom Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Kolkata, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha(Orissa), Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh 21
Datacom Solutions Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Mumbai 21 Operates as Videocon Telecom
Shyam Telelink Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Kolkata, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, North East 17 Shyam Telelink & Shyani Telelink have a combined 21 licenses. In late 2008 Russia-based Sistema bought a majority share in the company, which now operates as MTS India.
Shyani Telelink Mumbai, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh 4
Swan Telecom Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Mumbai 13 Swan was a subsidiary of Reliance Telecom established to circumvent the one-company-one-license rule. In 2008, Swan merged with Allianz Infratech; late in the year Abu Dhabi's Etisalat bought about 45 percent of the company, renaming it Etisalat DB Telecom.
Allianz Infratech Bihar, Madhya Pradesh 2
Idea Cellular Assam, Punjab, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, North East, Kolkata, West Bengal, Odisha(Orissa), Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) 9 Since Idea Cellular bought Spice Communications in 2008 for 27 billion (US$400 million),[21] of the 122 spectrum licenses sold in 2008 Idea owns 13. Seven are in use by the company, and the remainder are overlapping licenses.[22]
Spice Communications Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra 4
S Tel Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha(Orissa), North East, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh 6 In January 2009, Bahrain Telecommunications agreed to buy 49 percent of S Tel for $225 million. Chinnakannan Sivasankaran owns the remaining share.[23][24] In May 2009, Sahara Group bought an 11.7-percent share in S Tel.[25]
Tata Teleservices Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, North East 3 In late 2008 Tata sold a 26-percent share to the Japanese NTT DoCoMo for about 130.7 billion (US$1.9 billion), or an enterprise value of 502.69 billion (US$7.4 billion).[26]

Accused parties

The selling of the licenses drew attention to three groups: politicians and bureaucrats, who had the authority to sell licenses; corporations buying the licenses, and professionals who mediated between the politicians and corporations.

Politicians

The following charges were filed by the CBI and the Directorate General of Income Tax Investigation in the Special CBI Court.[27][28][29][30]

A. Raja

M. K. Kanimozhi

Bureaucrats

A number of bureaucrats were named in the CBI charge sheet filed in its Special Court.[27][28][29][30]

Siddharth Behura

RK Chandolia

Executives

A number of executives were accused in the CBI charge sheet.[27][28][29][30]

Sanjay Chandra

Gautam Doshi

Hari Nair

Surendra Pipara

Vinod Goenka

Shahid Balwa

Asif Balwa

Rajiv Agarwal

Sharath Kumar

Ravi Ruia

Anshuman Ruia

Vikas Saraf

IP Khaitan

Kiran Khaitan

Karim Morani

Corporations

Several companies were named in the CBI charge sheet.[27][28][29][30]

Unitech Wireless

Reliance Telecom

Swan Telecom

Other companies named in the charge sheet were:[81][82][83]

Media role

OPEN and Outlook reported that journalists Barkha Dutt (editor of NDTV) and Vir Sanghvi (editorial director of the Hindustan Times) knew that corporate lobbyist Nira Radia influenced Raja's appointment as telecom minister,[84] publicising Radia's phone conversations with Dutt and Sanghvi[85][86] when Radia's phone was tapped by the Income Tax Department. According to critics, Dutt and Sanghvi knew about the link between the government and the media industry but delayed reporting the corruption.[84]

Chronology

The Centre for Public Interest Litigation filed the first petition against the Union of India for irregularities in awarding 2G spectrum licenses. The petition alleged that the government lost $15.53 billion by issuing spectrum in 2008 based on 2001 prices, and by not following a competitive bidding process. This led to further petitions, and an investigation began in 2010.[87]

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Licence cancellations

On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on petitions filed by Subramanian Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan, challenging the 2008 allotment of 2G licenses,[207] cancelling all 122 spectrum licences granted during Raja's term as communications minister.[207] and described the allocation of 2G spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary".[208] The bench of GS Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly imposed a fine of 50 million (US$740,000) on Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservices and a 5 million (US$74,000) fine on Loop Telecom, S Tel, Allianz Infratech and Sistema Shyam Tele Services.[4] According to the ruling the current licences would remain in place for four months, after which time the government would reissue the licences.[209]

In its ruling the court said that former telecom minister A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer", listing seven steps he took to ensure this:[4][210]

  1. After becoming telecom minister, Raja directed that all applications for spectrum licences would be held pending Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommendations.[4][210]
  2. The 28 August 2007 TRAI recommendations were not presented to the full Telecom Commission, which would have included the finance secretary. Although the TRAI recommendations for allocation of 2G spectrum had serious financial implications (and finance ministry input was required under the Government of India Transaction of Business Rules, 1961), Telecom Commission non-permanent members were not notified of the meeting.[4][210]
  3. The DoT officers attending the 10 October 2007 Telecom Commission meeting were coerced into approving the TRAI recommendations, or they would have "incurred" Raja's "wrath".[4][210]
  4. Since the Cabinet had approved the Group of Ministers recommendations, the DoT had to discuss the issue of spectrum pricing with the finance ministry. However, Raja did not consult the finance minister or other officials because the finance secretary had objected to allocating 2G spectrum at 2001 rates.[4][210]
  5. Raja dismissed the law minister's suggestion that the issue should be presented to the Group of Ministers. After receiving the PM's 2 November 2007 letter suggesting transparency in spectrum allocation of the spectrum, Raja said it would be unfair, discriminatory, arbitrary and capricious to auction spectrum to new applicants because it would not give them a level playing field. Although a 24 September DoT press release said that 1 October would be the application deadline, he changed the deadline to 25 September. Raja's arbitrary action, "though appear[ing] to be innocuous was actually intended to benefit some of the real estate firms who did not have any experience in dealing with telecom services and who had made applications only on 24 September 2007, i.e. one day before the cut-off date fixed by the C&IT minister on his own".[4][210]
  6. The 25 September cut-off date decided by Raja on 2 November was not made public until a 10 January 2008 press release in which he changed the first-come, first-served principle which had been in operation since 2003. "This enabled some of the applicants, who had access either to the minister or DoT officers, get bank drafts prepared towards performance guarantee of about Rs 16 billion".[4][210]
  7. "The manner in which the exercise for grant of LoIs to the applicants was conducted on 10 January 2008 leaves no room for doubt that everything was stage managed to favour those who were able to know in advance change in the implementation of the first-come-first-served policy." As a result, some companies who had submitted applications in 2004 or 2006 were pushed down the list in favour of those who had applied in August and September 2007.[4][210]

Companies affected by cancellations

The table below lists the companies whose license were cancelled.[211][212]

Company Parent company # of licences cancelled
UninorJoint venture of Unitech Group of India and Telenor of Norway Unitech Group22
Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited, now MTS India Joint venture of the Shyam Group of India and Sistema of Russia 21
Loop Mobile (formerly BPL Mobile) Khaitan Holding Group 21
Videocon Telecom Videocon 21
Etisalat-DBJoint venture of Swan Telecom of India and Etisalat of the UAE 15
Idea Cellular Aditya Birla Group (49.05%), Axiata (Malaysia, 15%) & Providence Equity Partners (U.S., 10.6%) 13
S Tel Joint venture of C Sivasankaran of India and Batelco of Bahrain. After the Supreme Court ruling, Batelco sold its 42.7% share to Sivasankaran-owned Sky City Foundation for 65.8 million Bahraini dinar ($174.5 million).[213][214][215] 6
Tata Teleservices Tata Group 3

Aftermath

In addition to Batelco's exit, on 21 February 2012 Telenor (the majority shareholder in Uninor) terminated its agreement with Unitech and sued it for "indemnity and compensation".[216][217][218] On 23 February 2012, Etisalat of Etasalat-DB Telecom sued DB Realty corporate promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka for fraud and misrepresentation.[219][220][221]

Aircel-Maxis deal controversy

On 6 June 2011 former Aircel chief C. Sivasankaran complained to the CBI about not receiving a telecom licence and being forced by telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran to sell Aircel to the Malaysia-based Maxis Communications group, owned by T. Ananda Krishnan. The licences were allegedly issued after the deal was made. Sivasankaran also alleged that brothers Dayanidhi and Kalanithi Maran received kickbacks in the form of investments by the Maxis group through the Astro network in Sun TV Network, owned by the Maran family.[145][146][147] In the wake of the allegations, Maran resigned on 7 July.[222]

On 10 October, the CBI registered a case and raided properties owned by the Marans. CBI sources said that although no evidence of coercion was found in the Aircel sale, they found substantial evidence that Maran had favoured the company's takeover by Maxis and deliberately delayed Sivasankar's files.[145][146][147] On 8 February 2012, the Enforcement Directorate registered a money-laundering case against the Maran brothers[182] for allegedly receiving illegal compensation of about 5.5 billion in the Aircel-Maxis deal.[183]

During the CBI probe Sivasankaran said that the Maran brothers had forced him to sell his 74% share in Aircel to Maxis by threatening his life, giving the CBI a list of over 10 witnesses. In September 2012, the CBI said it finished its Indian investigation and was awaiting the response to a letter rogatory sent to Malaysia and a questionnaire from T. Ananda Krishnan before filing a chargesheet.[223] On 29 August 2014, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran, Malaysian businessman T Ananda Krishnan, Malaysian national Augustus Ralph Marshall, six others and four firms — Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd, Maxis Communication Berhad, Astro All Asia Network PLC and South Asia Entertainment Holding Ltd as accused in the case.[224] On 29 October 2014, special CBI judge OP Saini said that he found enough evidence to proceed with the prosecution and hence summoned former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and others as accused.[225] Based on the CBI chargesheet, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 1 April 2015, attached Maran brothers' properties worth Rs 742 crore.[226]

Subramanian Swamy alleged that in 2006 a company controlled by Karti Chidambaram, the son of Minister of Finance P. Chidambaram, received a five-percent share of Aircel to get part of 40 billion paid by Maxis Communications for the 74-percent share of Aircel. According to Swamy, Chidambaram withheld Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance of the deal until his son received the five-percent share in Siva's company.[227] The issue was raised a number of times in Parliament by the opposition, which demanded Chidambaram's resignation.[228] Although he and the government denied the allegations,[229] The Pioneer and India Today reported the existence of documents showing that Chidambaram delayed approval of the foreign direct investment proposal by about seven months.[227][230][231]

Response to scam

When Indian media began citing the CAG report identifying the loss at 1.76 trillion (short scale), the Indian opposition parties unanimously demanded the formation of a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the scam.[232][233] Although the government rejected their demand,[233] when the winter session of Parliament began on 9 November 2010 the opposition again pressed for a JPC; again, their demand was rejected.[233] The demand for a JPC gained further momentum when the CAG report was tabled in Parliament on 16 November 2010.[234] The opposition blocked the proceedings, again pressing for a JPC;[235] the government again rejected their demand, creating an impasse.[236] Speaker of the Lok Sabha Meira Kumar unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the impasse.[237] The winter session of Parliament concluded on 13 December 2010. Although 22 new bills were planned to be introduced, 23 pending bills passed and three bills withdrawn, Parliament functioned for only nine hours.[238] On 22 February 2011, after resisting opposition demands for over three months, the government announced that it would form a JPC.[239] The JPC criticised the CBI for its leniency to the PM, the Attorney General, Dayanidhi Maran and Chidambaram and its reluctance to investigate their roles on 24 July 2012.[240] After questioning former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi and the head of Maxis Communications, the CBI alleged that the Maran brothers accrued an illegal 5.50 billion by the sale of Sun Direct TV shares at highly "inflated prices".[241]

In early November 2010 Jayalalithaa accused state chief minister M Karunanidhi of protecting Raja from corruption charges, calling for Raja's resignation.[242] By mid-November, Raja resigned.[243] At that time, comptroller Vinod Rai issued show-cause notices to Unitech, S Tel, Loop Mobile, Datacom (Videocon) and Etisalat to respond to his assertion that the 85 licenses granted to these companies did not have the capital required at application or were otherwise illegal.[244] It was speculated that because these companies provide some consumer service, they would receive large fines but retain their licenses.[244]

In June 2011 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticised the CAG for commenting on policy issues, warning it "to limit the office to the role defined in the constitution."[245] After Singh's criticism the CAG conducted a "rigorous internal appraisal" and stood by its findings, citing additional events as corroboration. The CAG reiterated that there was "an undeniable loss to the exchequer", the calculation of which was based on three estimates: the 3G auctions and the Swan and Unitech transactions. It cited the Supreme Court ruling of 2 February 2012 that the actions of Raja and officers at the Department of Telecom were "wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the public interest, apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality. The material produced for the quote showed that the Minister for C&IT wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer." It said its estimate of loss of 1.76-lakh crore was justified, since the May 2012 TRAI collation of reserve prices for 2G spectrum was about the same as that in the November 2010 CAG report. TRAI had recommended a reserve price for 2G spectrum of 180 billion for a pan-India 5 MHz licence, higher than the 3G value of 167.50 billion for 5 MHz used by the CAG for arriving at a loss figure of 1,760 billion. It concluded that it was only examining the "implementation of policy", and policy-making was the government's prerogative.[246]

Joint parliamentary committee

The JPC consisted of half United Progressive Alliance members and half opposition members. Twelve were from the Lok Sabha, and eight from the Rajya Sabha. Of the Lok Sabha MPs, eight were from the Congress Party and four from the BJP. The following JPC members investigated the 2G scam:

Name Party
Kishore Chandra Deo Congress
Paban Singh Ghatowar Congress
Jai Prakash Agarwal Congress
Deepender Singh Hooda Congress
P. C. Chacko Congress
Manish Tewari Congress
Nirmal Khatri Congress
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Congress
T. R. Baalu Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
Kalyan Banerjee Trinamool Congress
Jaswant Singh BJP
Yashwant Sinha BJP
Harin Pathak BJP
Gopinath Munde BJP
Sharad Yadav Janata Dal (United)
Dara Singh Chauhan Bahujan Samaj Party
Akhilesh Yadav Samajwadi Party
Gurudas Dasgupta Communist Party of India
Arjun Charan Sethi Biju Janata Dal
M. Thambi Durai All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

See also

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