Dec. 16: The Supreme Court, in a seven-fold direction on Thursday, extended the 2G scam investigation by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate back to 2001 to cover allotment of spectrum during the NDA regime too and asked the income-tax department to hand over a complete analysis of the “Radia tapes” to the CBI as early as possible to speed up the probe.
Since the CBI registered the FIR on October 21, 2009, only against unknown persons in the 2G spectrum scam, in which a series of irregularities had been pointed out by the CAG, the agency was directed to register a separate FIR with regard to the allotment of spectrum licences between 2001 and 2007.
The fresh FIR would facilitate the “conduct of a thorough investigation with particular emphasis on the loss caused to the public exchequer and corresponding gain to the licencees/service providers and also on the issue of allowing use of dual/alternate technology by some service providers even before the decision was made public vide press release dated 19.10.2007,” said the bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly while rejecting the demand for a probe by a special investigation team (SIT).
As the “Radia tapes” have emerged as strong possible evidence in the 2G scam, the top court directed the director-general of I-T (investigation) to finish the analysis of the tapes’ transcripts as early as possible and hand over the same to the CBI to expedite the probe.
Regarding the 2G scam, the CBI was directed to go deep into the grant of licences by DoT to a large number of ineligible applicants and find out who was actually “responsible” for the same.