The CBI Investigations have revealed how disgraced former telecom minister A Raja knew accused Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom and Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra when he was the environment minister and the latter had sought various clearances for various real estate projects of their companies?DB Realty and Unitech Ltd, respectively.
Even Raja’s aides, R K Chandolia, who had also joined as private secretary to the minister, and former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura, who had joined DoT on January 1, 2008, were acquainted with each other as they had earlier worked together in the environment ministry.
Promoters of Unitech Wireless, the company which benefited the most in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, gained Rs 2,342 crore, the CBI said in its chargesheet against former disgraced Telecom Minister A Raja, besides eight others and three telecom companies.
It said that as per the subscription agreement on October 28, 2008 between various Unitech group companies, their holding companies and Telenor Asia Pte and Telenor Mobile Communications AS, Telenor had agreed to infuse extra equity in the companies for 66.5% stake.
?The pre-money enterprise values of the company was pegged at Rs 4,400 crore of which Rs 1146.7 crore was external debt and Rs 773 crore as shareholders loans. Net pre-money equity value of the promoters was treated as Rs 2,480 crore. Accordingly, the investment consideration of Telenor was kept at Rs 5,093 crore.
?Actual investment of promoters in equity was Rs 138 crore, which was valued at Rs 2,480 crore, indicating a gain of Rs 2,342 crore to promoters of Unitech Wireless,? the CBI said
The CBI, which has divided the charge sheet into five sections — probe into cut-off dates, probe into first-come-first-served basis, dual technology approvals and spectrum allocation, eligibility of companies and cheating government exchequer — attempted to present the picture of events that took place during 2007-08.
Unitech Group in joint venture with Norway’s telecom major Telenor had started its service in telecom business under the name of Uninor.
Investigations further revealed that Telenor Asia Pte subscribed to over 340,532,767 shares of the company (Unitech) between March 20, 2009 to February 22, 2010 in six tranches. These shares were alloted at Rs 6,135 crore.
?The total number of shares held by Unitech group in eight group companies of Unitech Wirless, prior to the agreement with Telenor was 13.80 crore. At a premium of Rs 169.731, the total premium amount/ gain to the Unitech Group as such comes at Rs 2,342 crore, which is the same amount as arrived at according to the agreement,? the charge sheet said.
Investigations also revealed that Etisalat (Mauritius) Ltd, a group company of Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) of UAE, subscribed to 11,29,94,228 shares of Swan Telecom on December 17, 2008 for a total consideration of Rs 3,228 crore. Similarly, Genex Exim Ventures subscribed to 1,33,17,245 shares of the company on the same day for a total consideration of Rs 380 crore. Probe revealed that this amount was arranged by Genex through ETA Star Infrastructure.