India’s 2G scam probe to question Tata

An Indian parliamentary panel investigating the controversial award of telecoms licences is due to question some of the country's biggest tycoons, including Ratan Tata and Anil Ambani, reports the BBC.

The hearing begins Monday.

Over the weekend (during the Cricket World Cup finals, no less), Indian police filed the first charge sheets in the alleged 2G telecom spectrum scam, producing documents running to some 80,000 pages. Among the highlights: former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja was charged with conspiracy, forgery and fraud. 

Various charges were also filed against Sanjay Chandra (director, Unitech Wireless Ltd), Vinod Goenka (director DB Realty), Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair, and Surendra Bipara of Reliance Communication, along with Siddharth Behura (former telecom secretary), RK Chandolia (former private secretary of Raja), and Shahid Balwa(former director DB Realty).

Charges were also filed against three companies, Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB), Unitech Wireless Ltd and Reliance Communication of Anil Ambani's Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).

According to the Times of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged Reliance Telecom and three of its senior executives with abetment to fraud, rather than fraud itself. In contrast, all the other accused named in the charge-sheet filed on Saturday — Swan Telecom, Unitech Wireless, their executives, former telecom minister A Raja, former secretary Siddharth Behura and Raja's private secretary R K Chandolia — were all charged with fraud as well as criminal conspiracy, forgery and bribery, the paper said.  

Notably, Reliance Telecom is the largest and most powerful company named in the proceedings so far.