The Central Bureau of Investigation is expected to file its second chargesheet in the 2G spectrum allocation scam on Monday, which may name DMK MP Kanimozhi and her stepmother Dayalu Ammal.
Questions are now being raised over the effect this will have over the ties between Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) alliance since CBI sources said that investigating agency is about to implicate the family members of the DMK party chief.
The supplementary chargesheet comes after the federal agency filed the first one earlier this month against former telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja and his aides over allegedly distributing mobile spectrum and licenses at throwaway rates.
In a swindle that could have cost the national exchequer upto Rs 1.76 lakh crore, A Raja purportedly gave away the airwaves arbitrarily in return of kickbacks, supposedly channeled through his party run TV network Kalaignar TV.
Earlier, Kanimozhi, who is the daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, was grilled by the CBI over fund transfers from a private firm indicted in the scam to Kalaignar TV, a regional channel in which Karunanidhi?s family owns majority stake.
Karunanidhi’s second wife Dayalu Ammal, who holds a 60 percent stake in Kalaignar TV while Kanimozhi owns 20 percent, was to be quizzed by the CBI at the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) headquarters in Chennai.
The CBI was probing transfer of Rs 214 crore from Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa?s DB Realty firm to the television channel.
The investigating agency enquired if these funds were in any manner connected with allocation of 2G Spectrum at undervalued price.
Kalaignar TV?s managing director Sharat Kumar was also questioned by the CBI in the case.
Balwa has already been arrested, along with former telecom minister and DMK MP A Raja, in the scam.
The CBI, in its supplementary chargesheet, is expected to name Balwa?s cousin Asif and his aide Rajeev Agarwal, Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd, who helped in Kalaignar TV in money laundering.
Both Asif and Rajeev are in judicial custody.
The CBI is also likely to enclose details of the ?illegal? money transfers by Raja, his slain aide Sadiq Batcha and Shahid Usman Balwa, the former Managing Director of DB Realty to DMK-owned Kalaignar TV.
“Investigations have also revealed that in furtherance of the conspiracy, Dynamix Realty, a partnership firm of DB Realty Ltd and other DB group companies, paid Rs 200 crore to Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd during December 2008 to August 2009, following a circuitous route through Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd and Cineyug Films Pvt Ltd (DB group holds 49 per cent equity in it),” CBI had said in its first charge sheet filed on April 2.
The CBI named Behura, Raja’s former PS R K Chandolia, Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Reliance ADA group’s Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair, Reliance Telecom, Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom in its 8000-page first set of charge-sheet.
In perhaps the biggest scam in Independent India, allegedly masterminded by ex-minister A Raja, telecoms spectrum was given away at throwaway prices in 2008 causing a potential revenue loss of up to Rs 1.76 crore.