Scam Central (Update)

As the investigation into the ever more murky 2G telecom spectrum scam continues, the Central Bureau of Investigation interrogated Idea Cellular CEO Sanjeev Aga and chairman of Anant Raj Group, a Delhi-based real estate company, Amit Sarin, the Indian Express reports.  Meanwhile, the Supreme Court called for all correspondence between Department of Telecom (DoT) and mobile phone service provider S-Tel after it was alleged that the company was arm-twisted in 2010 to drop its opposition to alleged arbitrary change in policy, according to the Times of India.

The Department of Telecom allegedly moved the cut-off date for S-Tel's spectrum licenses up a month, from October 2007 to September 2007, to eliminate it from the race for India's mobile market, the TOI said. The unsubstantiated implication is that somebody pressured the DoT to remove S-Tel from the competition.

Meanwhile, the CBI interrogation Anant Raj's Sarin dealt with an alleged transfer of money to Swan Telecom, allegedly a front for billionaire Anil Ambani's Reliance Telecom.

The feds quizzed Idea's Aga about his company's merger with Spice Telecom, which allegedly involved overlapping spectrum licenses and violated rules on companies applying for multiple bands of spectrum, according to India Today. 

The magazine also said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has initiated a probe into the non-compete agreement signed between Idea Cellular (which is controlled by Kumar Mangalam Birla, one of India's largest industrialists) and Spice communications. The agency will look into the motive behind a fee of around $120 million paid by Idea to Spice communications.