Industrialist Anil Ambani was described as a “hostile” witness by the CBI during his deposition before a special court here conducting trial in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case as he “resiled” from his statement given earlier to the probe agency.
During his cross-examination as prosecution witness lasting four hours, the Reliance ADA Group (RADAG) chairman said he was unaware of any company called Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, which the CBI has claimed was a shell company of Reliance Telecom Ltd (RTL). Swan Telecom and its two promoters along with RTL and its three executive officials are facing trial in the case for allegedly giving false information in order to acquire radio waves. Ambani told the court that he did not “recall” if RTL had made an investment in Swan Telecom and that it was not in his knowledge that Swan Telecom had applied for unified access service licences (UASL) in 2007.
54-year-old Ambani said he does not “recall” the various board meetings of AAA Consultancy Services (P) Ltd, said to be an associate of RADAG. When special public prosecutor U.U. Lalit showed him the minutes of the meetings the firm held in 2005-06, Ambani said he did not remember anything as the minutes were not prepared by him but by his secretarial staff.
To this, the judge told Ambani that although he does not recall, he was present during these meetings as per the records which must not be false. “But you do not maintain false records. Your record must be correct,” Justice O.P. Saini said.
“The records should be correct,” Ambani said in response to the judge’s query. “I attend a large number of meetings and I do not recall. I am going by the records only,” he said.
Ambani said though he did recall that he had visited the CBI in February, 2011, he did not know if his statement was recorded or if he handed over any note to the agency. On being shown part of his statement recorded by the CBI (under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code which is not admissible as evidence), Ambani said, “I am unable to recall if these facts were told by me to the investigating officer.”
His stock answer to a series of questions by the prosecution on the existence of companies, board meetings he attended and transfer of his shares to companies such as Tiger Traders, Zebra Consultants and Parrot Consultants were, “I’m not aware” or “I don’t recall”.
At one point, the judge told him, “You are forgetting too much. Try to recollect something.”