The second day of hearings by the Public Accounts Committee saw Anil Ambani deposing before it. The ADAG chairman on Tuesday deposed for over two hours on the 2G scam. However, according to sources, Ambani sought to hide behind the Supreme Court on one of the most crucial aspect of the scam ? that beneficiary firm Swan Telecom acted as a front for his company to get spectrum illegally. He said he cannot answer much on the subject as it is sub judice.

He also did not give a direct reply to the question on how his firm got in-principle approval for GSM spectrum a day before the policy was announced. Sources said he merely said there was no irregularity as the Cabinet had way back in 2003 decided on a technology-neutral policy.

Sources said that Ambani was grilled by the PAC members for over two hours in connection with alleged irregularities in 2G spectrum allocation. They said that on several critical questions, Ambani said he did not remember details, to which PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi said that his answers were prompt in areas where there were no wrongdoings but wherever there are serious allegations, his memory seemed to fail him. While he did not say much on his firm’s connection with Swan Telecom, the latter’s CEO Atul Jhamb ? who was grilled before Ambani ? said that Tiger Traders had no promoter but had interlocking funds from several entities and, therefore, only had directors. The CBI has said that Tiger Traders, which was controlled by ADAG, held 90.1% stake in Swan while the balance 9.9% was held by Reliance Telecom Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADAG firm Reliance Communications.

The most serious setback from Tuesday’s PAC hearing could be for former telecom minister A Raja as V Srinivasan, a director of S-Tel, one of the licensee, said that it was under pressure from the department of telecommunications that it withdrew its appeal in the Supreme Court. S-Tel suffered due to the advancement of the cut-off date for applications by Raja and had moved the Delhi High Court, which had ruled in its favour. The DoT had appealed in the Supreme Court and around that time had suspended S-Tel’s operations in three circles on security grounds. Later the company withdrew its appeal. On Saturday, the CBI charge sheeted three ADAG officials ? the largest number from any private entity ? Gautam Doshi, group managing director, Surendra Pipara, senior vice-president and Hari Nair, company secretary, in the 2G spectrum scam. The charge is that Reliance Telecom was the original creator of Swan Telecom and controlled it till October 2007, when RCom got GSM spectrum in circles where RTL did not have it. The three accused officials thereafter ? instead of withdrawing their application ? transferred the control and management of Swan to DB Realty’s Shahid Balwa, knowing fully well that the company was ineligible for telecom licences. Joshi told reporters that both Ambani and Unitech managing director Sanjay Chandra expressed reservations in answering a lot of questions because of the matter being sub judice and their being chargesheeted. Sources, however, said Chandra’s answers were very weak and he could not offer any convincing replies. In fact, to a question on the ruckus in the DoT on January 10, 2008, the day licences were granted, Chandra said that he was out of country on that day. Ambani, according to sources, also said that he had his own set of grievances about the spectrum allocation process and how certain telecom companies were favoured. Sources said that he also defended the first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy in the allocation of 2G spectrum and favoured the auction route for 3G spectrum allocation.

Telenor’s (majority owner in Unitech Wireless) Asia director, Charles Woodworth, was quite candid in his responses, Joshi said.

The PAC had on Monday quizzed industrialist Ratan Tata and his PR advisor Niira Radia. Joshi had said that while Tata was quite frank in his replies, Radia was evasive. Tata had said he and his PR advisor in no way influenced telecom policy or were instrumental in getting Cabinet berths for any leader. Tata had also highlighted how his group firm Tata Teleservices was a victim of telecom policies.