CBI to file chargesheet against Raja by Mar 31

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that former Telecom minister A Raja will be chargesheeted by March 31 in the 2G spectrum scam, even as the federal agency found that the DMK leader had forged documents to favour companies in spectrum allocation.

The CBI, while filing a status report in the 2G scam before the apex court, said A Raja, now in jail, will be chargesheeted along with two firms.

The names of the firms are not announced, but the CBI indicated filing more chargesheets against others.

Raja is accused of forgery too.

The CBI has found that Raja had even resorted to forgery to facilitate licence to preferred companies as he manipulated the first-come-first-serve option by advancing by a week the deadline for payments for licenses.

The CBI said a press release to this effect which was cleared by Solicitor General GE Vahanvati was forged.
The federal agency found that a paragraph was deleted, and a key sentence on approval of the changes was interpolated.

Vahanvati, now India’s Attorney General, told the CBI that he had not cleared the version that Raja put out to the newspapers.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday submitted their progress report to the court on their probes into the 2G scam saying they were scrutinising 31 firms.

The probe has now extended to a multitude of firms spanning at least six countries and agencies were seeking help of foreign authorities in tracing the money trail in the massive swindle involving the allocation of telecoms spectrum in 2008.

Four teams of the ED are trying track the flow of money, some of which it expects is illegal.

The Supreme Court on Monday heard the case of cancelling licenses issued by former telecoms minister A Raja, who is accused of leading the 2G spectrum scam, that cost the national exchequer up to 1.76 lakh crore, according to the government?s auditor.

As Raja languishes in jail, the investigating agency has quizzed several people, including his party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam?s (DMK) chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and a number of telecoms companies.

Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi and wife Dayalu Ammal too have been questioned by the CBI.

Shahid Balwa, the former Managing Director of DB Group, that floated Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB) and allegedly paid kickbacks to Raja and his party in lieu of favours during the 2008 allocation process was also arrested.