The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is causing CBI more trouble in the 2G scam case.
The country's main regulatory body today said it's 'not possible' to quantify the losses caused by A.Raja's controversial handling of 2G licenses. TRAI chairman was quoted by reports saying his experts had tried to assess pricing of spectrum from 2001 to 2008 and his opinion, in a letter last week, was based on their findings.
On September 1, the CBI's case against Raja, a former telecom minister and a DMK man, had taken a massive hit when TRAI had declared that it was impossible to determine India's true loss due to mishandling of telecom licenses during the minister's tenure.
A loss, to the tune of Rs 30,000 crores forms a very important part of the CBI's case against Raja.
The agency claims Raja conspired with several companies during the 2G sale and also believe the former minister greatly under-valued the licences to favour interested parties.
In a related development today, all the 14 accused in the 2G spectrum scam have moved the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here on Tuesday for a copy of a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report that states there was no loss to the exchequer in the allocation of 2G spectrum.
"They sought the report just to calculate the quantum of loss caused to the government of India," said the application moved by Raja and the others before CBI Special Judge O.P. Saini.
The CBI, in its chargesheet, has mentioned a loss of around Rs. 30,000 crore to the exchequer due to the allocation of 2G licenses. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has mentioned a notional loss of Rs.1.76 lakh crore due to Raja's decision to allocate spectrum on a first-come-first-served basis instead of through an auction.
Taking note of the application, Judge Saini issued notice to the CBI seeking its response by Friday.
The Supreme Court was told on Monday that the TRAI has said that there was no loss to the exchequer in the allocation of 2G spectrum and the accused in judicial custody were entitled to bail.
The observation came during the arguments on bail for Sanjay Chandra of Unitech and Vinod Goenka of DB Reality, who are in judicial custody for their alleged involvement in the 2G scandal.