Former minister’s aide found dead (India)
An associate of India’s former Telecoms Minister has been found dead. The aide, Sadhick Batcha, 37, was found hanging at his home in Chennai, his family claimed, although the police are still investigating the situation around his death.
Although a suicide note has been found, the police are still investigating the death and have not ruled out murder as a possibility.
CBI has stated that the investigation into the huge telecoms scandal over the country’s 2008 mobile network licenses will continue though. The investigators, who are close to wrapping up their Supreme Court-supervised investigation into the scam, stated that Batcha’s death is of little consequence now.
As per the CBI officer, everything is about documents, the money trail. His death will not affect it.
It had been claimed that Sadhick Batcha owned a company which could have been used to launder some of the claimed bribes that were paid to secure the GSM licenses back in 2008. The company had included the wife of the former telecoms minister as a company director, although she resigned in 2008.
Shahid Balwa resigns from DB Group (India)
DB Group Managing Director, Shaid Balwa has resigned from the company. He was arrested on Feb 8 as part of the ongoing probe into the 2G scam by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The company, that has arms in realty, hospitality and telecoms, stated that the board had accepted his resignation.
Balwa’s DB Realty had floated Swan Telecom, which was allegedly favored by former telecoms minister, A Raja during the 2008 2G spectrum auction.
The CBI suspects that in 2008, when the government was allocating 2G spectrum for mobile phone networks, Raja might have twisted the rules to benefit a few companies – especially Swan and Unitech.
Swan and Unitech sold equity to foreign companies much before they began the launch of their services.
The DB group’s telecom arm, earlier known as Swan Telecom, is now known as Etisalat-DB.
A. Raja remanded to stay in jail until March 17 (India)
India’s former Telecoms Minister, Andimuthu Raja has been remanded to stay in jail until March 17th as investigations into the 2008 telecoms licensing scandal continue. Three other men, who were also arrested by the investigators, were also remanded to stay in jail.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge sent Shahid Usman Balwa, the owner of DB Realty – a minority shareholder in the mobile network, Etisalat DB, R.K. Chandolia, former personal secretary to Raja, and Siddarth Behura, former telecom secretary, to an additional 14 days judicial custody after their earlier remand order expired.
Raja, Behura and Chandolia were arrested on 2nd February, while Balwa was arrested on the 8th February.
The CBI has been investigating the total loss to the government made by the huge number of telecom licenses granted in 2008. The loss is estimated to be nearly US$5 billion.
Essar cuts stake in Loop Telecom (India)
India’s Essar Group has cut its 9.9% stake in Loop Telecom to just 1.5% as the company continues to be investigated over its shareholding in the company.
The Essar Group owns 33% of Vodafone Essar. However, there have been constant speculations that the Essar Group indirectly owns more than the legal 10% limit, and that it wanted to sell its Vodafone stake to set up its own network.
A Court affidavit has revealed that the Dubai-based Khaitan family now owns the remaining 98.5% stake. However, I P Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan are brother-in-law and sister, respectively, of Ravi and Shashi Ruia which will only add to the controversy about their investment.
According to the court document, the effective shareholding of Loop Telecom when its mobile licenses were granted was I P Khaitan with 20.98% and Kiran Khaitan with 76.87%, with Essar holding 2.15%. The structure has since changed to I P Khaitan with 32.08%, Kiran Khaitan with 66.42% and Essar with 1.5%.
The Essar Group also denied that it lent money to the Khaitan’s to fund their network – which would have given Essar Group an effective investment in the company above the 10% limit.
Loop Telecom is also being investigated as part of the ongoing scandal over the 2008 license awarded by disgraced former Telecoms Minister, A Raja.
India renews plans to merge BSNL and MTNL
If reports are to be believed, India’s government has revived plans to merge its two state-owned telecoms networks, BSNL and MTNL. Plans to merge the two companies were mooted about three-years ago by the former Telecoms Minister, A Raja.
Previous attempts to privatize BSNL foundered following union pressures,and even a substantial head-start in deploying 3G networks in the country has not turned around the fortunes of the two companies.
MTNL, which is partly privatized, operates only in Delhi and Mumbai, while BSNL operates in rest of the country, so a merger would create a genuine national network.
It can also be presumed that a merged company would have to surrender some of their overlapping 3G and WiMAX licenses, which could then be resold by the government to the private operators.
A Raja arrested over Indian Telecoms Scandal
India’s former telecoms minister, Andimuthu Raja has been arrested, along with two of his former aides, over the telecoms licensing scandal that is claimed to have cost the government as much as US$40 billion in lost license fee revenues.
According to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), it arrested A Raja, R.K. Chandolia, Raja’s then personal secretary, and former telecom secretary Siddartha Behura on Wednesday. A spokesman of the CBI confirmed that Raja was arrested due to irregularities in the allocation of mobile licences and spectrum. He will be in court today to face the charges.
Raja is also a senior member of the ruling Congress party and his arrest may destabilize the coalition governing the country after the Party initially supported Raja and only put pressure on him to resign as telecoms minister last November when the scandal became too loud to ignore. The opposition parties have been blocking Parliamentary business until an independent investigation is held into the license scandal.
According to Arun Jaitley, leader of the opposition BJP in the upper house, he only wishes that the Prime Minister, instead of living in denial, had acted three years ago so this huge loss to the public exchequer had not taken place.
It has been estimated that up to 85 of the 122 licenses handed out in 2008 by A Raja could be invalid, while other companies who lost out due to arbitrary changes in the application deadline have themselves not ruled out suing for their losses.
Raja has persistently denied any wrong-doing, saying that he followed government policy and expects that he will prove his innocence.
