New Delhi: Less than a week after the Supreme Court cancelled 122 telecom licences and spectrum allocated since January 2008, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may be confining its focus on the sector to the period during which the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power, based on the contents of an internal government note.

Finding a solution: Norwegian IT minister Rigmor Aasrud (left) met telecom minister Kapil Sibal regarding the cancellation of licences. By Subhav Shukla/PTI

DoT, in response to CBI’s plea, provided the licence agreements for Bharti Telenet Ltd for Delhi, and Aircel for Delhi and Mumbai, according to an internal note reviewed by Mint. DoT is still trying to locate the remaining documents and will furnish those as soon as they are found, according to the note, which bears a 2 February signature.

“As per the Supreme Court directions, we are probing the irregularities committed in the grant of licences from 2001 to 2007. A case has already been registered against Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Essar Ltd,” said a high-ranking CBI official on condition of anonymity. “We have examined some of the officials from both the companies and some witnesses from DoT. At present, we are documenting the evidence and once this process is over, we will call (former DoT officials) Shyamal Ghosh and J.R. Gupta for detailed examination,” the official added.

Bharti and Vodafone spokespersons said they were unaware of the development, while Aircel, Idea and Loop didn’t respond to queries.

No review petition

Meanwhile, a senior DoT official said that the government will not file a review petition with the Supreme Court regarding Thursday’s ruling.

The licences cancelled last week were 22 of Uninor (a joint venture between Unitech and Telenor of Norway), 21 of Loop, 21 of Sistema-Shyam TeleServices Ltd (a joint venture between Shyam Telelink and Sistema JSFC of Russia), 15 of Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt. Ltd (a joint venture between Swan Telecom and Etisalat of the UAE), six of S Tel Pvt. Ltd and 21 of Videocon Telecommunications Ltd, besides three of the Tatas and nine belonging to Idea Cellular.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads the NDA and accused the Congress party, said no wrongdoing took place during its administration.

“In the past, when the Congress and UPA (United Progressive Alliance coalition) raised allegations of irregularities of the NDA government, the then telecom minister Arun Shourie had gone on record and volunteered to depose before any panel or investigative agency regarding the allegations of irregularities during the NDA regime,” said Nirmala Sitaraman, BJP spokesperson.

“Having said that, it is important to point out that in the light of the Supreme Court order where licences were cancelled for misuse of first-come-first-served policy, the BJP and the NDA have nothing to worry about,” she said. “This is because, firstly, there were no irregularities during the NDA regime, and secondly, there was no first-come, first-served policy.”

Ghosh, former telecom secretary, and Gupta, former deputy director general of DoT, served under former telecom minister Pramod Mahajan(2001-03) during the BJP-led NDA government. Both officials had already been questioned during the preliminary inquiry. Mahajan was killed in a shooting in 2006.

According to the first information report (FIR) filed in November last year, Ghosh and Gupta entered into a criminal conspiracy with three private companies—Bharti Cellular (now Bharti Airtel), Hutchison Max and Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone India)—and abused their official positions as public servants. “The public servants, with approval of the then telecom minister, took an alleged hurried decision on 31 January 2002 to allocate additional spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz in violation of the report of a technical committee,” the FIR read.

In November, CBI had raided the Delhi and Mumbai offices of Bharti and Vodafone looking for evidence in the case.

This is the third case the agency has registered relating to 2G (second-generation) spectrum. In the first case, relating to the 2008 allocations, CBI has filed a chargesheet and supplementary chargesheet against then telecom minister A. Raja, his then personal secretary R.K. Chandolia, the then DoT secretary Siddharth Behura, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) member of Parliament K. Kanimozhi as well as executives of Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom (now known as Etisalat DB) and Reliance Communications Ltd, among others.

CBI registered a preliminary enquiry in January 2011 and based on its findings filed the second 2G case against Dayanidhi Maran, who was the telecom minister from 2004 to 2007 during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s earlier term.

CBI director A.P. Singh, also met Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Pradeep Kumar regarding the 2G case on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court had on Thursday asked the CVC to supervise CBI and other agencies involved in the 2G scam investigation.

In its FIR, CBI alleged there was a loss of Rs 508 crore to the state exchequer during 2001-07. “The then minister for telecom and communication (Pramod Mahajan) has been excluded since he has expired,” CBI had said in a statement while accusing him of being part of a criminal conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Norwegian information technology (IT) minister Rigmor Aasrud met communications minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday regarding last week’s cancellation of licences.

“The Norwegian IT minister and the Telenor executive met me. We had a dialogue about their perception over the Supreme Court ruling,” Sibal said after the meeting. When asked whether the SC ruling will have an adverse impact on the investment scenario in the country, Sibal said, “Indian market has a lot of depth and opportunity. There should not be any doubt about investment flow. We will bring clarity and present it in front of the public.”

Sibal also hinted that the coming reauction may not be too burdensome for bidders.

“The economy is robust and there is no reason for anybody to feel despondent because there are enormous opportunities. There is enough spectrum available for everybody. So we are looking forward to a robust healthy sector. From our side we will ensure that the policy is transparent and is implemented in a fair and transparent manner,” Sibal added.

If bidding for 2G spectrum is heavy, tariffs may rise, said this official.

Prashant K. Nanda and Appu Esthose Suresh contributed to this story.

shauvik.g@livemint.com