New Delhi, May 9 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to former union telecom secretary Siddharth Behura in connection with the 2G spectrum scam case.
Behura got bail on payment of Rs. 5 lakh as surety and Rs. 10 lakh bond.
Nineteen individuals, including former telecom minister A Raja, and six companies are accused in the case. Fourteen people were arrested.
The 2G spectrum scam involved government officials, who illegally undercharged mobile telephony companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they would use to create 2G subscriptions for cell phones.
The shortfall between the money collected and the money which the law mandated to be collected is estimated to be Rupees 176,645 crore (35.24 billion dollars) as valued by Comptroller and Auditor General of India based on 3G and BWA spectrum auction prices which held in 2010. However the exact loss is disputed.
In a chargesheet filed on April 2, 2011 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency pegged the loss at Rupees 30,984.55 crore (6.18 billion dollars), whereas the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India claims that the government actually gained Rupees 3,000 crore (598.5 million dollars) by selling the spectrum.
Union Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said in 2011 during a press conference that no loss was caused by selling 2G licenses.
All speculations of profit, loss and no-loss were put to rest on February 2, 2012 when the Supreme Court of India delivered judgement on a public interest litigation (PIL) which was directly related to the 2G spectrum scam.
The apex court declared allotment of spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary" and quashed all the 122 licenses issued in 2008 during the tenure of then telecom minister A. Raja, the main accused in the scam case.
The court further said that A. Raja "wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer" and "virtually gifted away important national asset".
The scam came to public notice when the Income Tax Department was investigating political lobbyist Nira Radia.
The government's investigation and reaction to the findings in the investigation were the subject of debate, as were the nature of the media's reactions.
Much of the credit of bringing this whole scam into the public light goes to Janata Party poresident Subramanian Swamy, who is the chief petitioner for this case. (ANI)
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