The country?s sixth largest mobile operator, Idea Cellular, on Wednesday said the government-appointed auditor has given it a clean chit and did not find any major discrepancy in its accounts with regard to concealing revenues and short charging the government in terms of payment of revenue-share licence fee.
Sanjeev Aga, managing director of Idea Cellular, said, ?The special audit report on Idea Cellular has reported no discrepancy. Indeed it could not have. There are tabulations of some amounts, presumably for data collation as required by the department of telecommunications. Such heads of accounts were treated in line with mandated accounting standards, strictly as per TDSAT rulings and also the view of special auditors is not to the contrary.? The development comes after a similar audit on the country?s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, did not find anything wrong and gave it a clean chit.
Last year in October, a similar audit had found Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications Ltd inflate 2007-08 wireless revenues by Rs 2,915 crore to shareholders, while simultaneously under-reporting the figures to telecom regulator Trai. It had found that RComm made an ?under-payment of licence fee? of Rs 315.9 crore in 2006-07 and 2007-08, a charge denied by RComm.
According to sources, the auditors in the case of Idea did not come across any major diversion of revenues that may have led to lower adjusted gross revenue, the basis for arriving at licence and the spectrum fee liability.
