2G Scam: Government grills innocents with guilty

As the much discussed 2G scam has brought a big shame to Indian government, it seems that Congress has decided to show no mercy and to grill the innocents with the guilty, in order to protect its political image.

The great barbeque grilling started with the supposed key player in the big scam, former telecom minister A Raja. Though it can not be proven in any manner, one can clearly see that A Raja was made into a scapegoat in this whole process and took the bullet for the sake of cabinet, which possibly could have been the key decision maker in allocation of 2G spectrum license. The DMK leader was heard speaking to his lawyers in Tamil on 3rd February 2011 during which, at one point, he said all decisions on 2G were taken by the cabinet.

Government didn’t stop after grilling A Raja, but decided to pull all the companies that acquired the 2G spectrum license in 2008. As Unitech and Swan sold of their stakes to other global firms shortly after getting licenses, they appeared at fault. Emphasizing on this point, Unitech was framed to be the prime suspect in the 2G spectrum allocation case by CBI.

According to the FIR filed by CBI, the charges against Unitech are:

1.       It appears that certain telecom companies were favored during the allocation of 2G spectrum by former telecom minister A Raja. There are possibilities that Unitech might be one of these beneficiaries.

2.       During the allocation process, companies like Swan and Unitech seemed to have been tipped off, because despite the cut-off date being brought forward, they had their payments ready.

Clarification:

There are possibilities that the 2G license was sold to Unitech at a low price to avoid the detection of favors being done to 9 other telecom companies. As Unitech was quick enough to arrange for funds without being tipped off, the officials had no other option but to give the license to Unitech.

3.       Unitech was allotted UAS licenses for 22 circles for Rs 1658 Crore. It offloaded its 60 per cent of shares to Telenor of Norway for Rs 6100 Crore before the roll-out.

Clarification:

It was stated by Unitech at the time of the offloading, the proceeds of the stake sale to Telenor would be utilized entirely for telecom operations, and the company would launch the services in the first half of 2009. Unitech kept its promise and the telecom operations of Uninor started in the last quarter of 2009. 

After it was apparently difficult for the CBI to prove the charges against Unitech, they simply pressed more charges of cheating and forgery against the 10 private players on Monday 14th February 2011, saying they misled the government and produced false documents to claim licenses.

Unitech has declined all of the above charges and clearly stated that it was not favored in any way during the allocation of 2G spectrum license. Unitech MD Sanjay Chandra also said, “Unitech has co-operated with all investigating agencies from the very beginning, as we have nothing to hide. Our officers have provided all records for examination and clarified all issues raised by them from time to time. Going forward, we will continue to assist in the same spirit.”

As Telenor group shares a strong bond of trust with Unitech Group and given that Unitech will come out clean from this scam, Telenor has decided to stay in the Indian markets with Unitech group. The regional head of Telenor Group, Glenn Mandelid recently stated that company does not have any intentions to make changes in the long term plans for the Indian markets. He also stated that within 5 years, the company expects to become the cash slow positive and by the year 2018 it targets to grab 8% of the total market share. It was also expected that the Indian venture will start giving positive results within 3 years.