The CBI, probing the 2G spectrum scam, on Monday questioned Videocon group chairman Venugopal Dhoot and his brother and Rajya Sabha MP Rajkumar Dhoot in connection with alleged irregularities in changing the share capital in Datacom Solutions (which was later renamed as Videocon Telecommunications).
According to sources, the agency officials asked them directly about the role allegedly played by former telecom minister A. Raja in allowing the Nahatas of telecom equipment manufacturer Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) to off-load their entire stake (64 per cent) in Datacom to Dhoots after the allocation of the Unified Access Service (UAS) licences.
The Nahatas, who were allocated licences to run GSM-based mobile telephone services, formed Datacom and later reportedly sold 64 per cent stake in it to the Dhoots of Videocon Group. Sources said, “Statements of the duo were recorded by the agency officials and they were also confronted with the documents seized by the agency during its raids. The duo were called to the CBI headquarters in the morning at around 11 am and questioned for over seven hours and confronted with the documents related to change in their share capital.”
The agency has reportedly did not issue summon to them, sources said, adding that the duo were asked to appear before the agency on Monday. “The agency officials also confronted Dhoots with the statement of their company secretary, submitted to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), claiming change in the share capital. The duo was shown the documents and asked to explain the minutes of the meeting of an extra-ordinary general body of the company held in August, 2007,” sources said. While their replies to certain questions were convincing, in some cases they could not give satisfactory reply, they added.
The CAG in its report had alleged that Datacom Solutions, which later changed to Videocon Telecommunications, while submitting its application for 22 licences on August 28, 2007, had “made a false claim of the paid-up capital of `150 crores through company secretary.”
However, on November 27, 2007, the company suo-motto submitted a so-called “correct” version of documents as on August 28, 2007, stating that they had submitted an old version of documents inadvertently along with the application.
The CAG alleged that DoT failed examine the claims of the company with due diligence even when company claimed to have passed the resolution enhancing the authorised share capital of the applicant company around the date of application.
The questioning of the duo was part of the CBI questioning all the heads of private telecom companies which were allocated spectrum in 2008. The agency so far has questioned top brass of various telecom companies, including Reliance Infocomm Chairman Anil Ambani, Essar
CEO Prashant Ruia and Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra.