The Centre for Public Interest Litigation, an NGO, on Thursday alleged that telecom minister Kapil Sibal and attorney general GE Vahanvati had abused their positions to benefit Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Comunications and the same needed a thorough investigation by the CBI.
It said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had proposed to impose a penalty of R650 crore (all 13 circles) on RCom for violation of the UASL agreement as it had resorted to unauthorised switching-off/closure of services to subscribers from the Universal Service Obligation Fund sites, which is not allowed. But Sibal overruled all the DoT officials, including the telecom secretary, and had in effect reduced the penalty to only R5 crore.
The DoT stated that Reliance bagged the USOF contract by predatory bidding and then backed out, violating the UASL conditions, which carried a penalty of R50 crore per circle.
?The facts clearly show Sibal abused his positions as the minister to overrule the unanimous view taken by the USOF branch of DoT, director USOF, senior officers of DoT, member finance and the telecom secretary, to benefit a private operator by closing the issue with only a penalty of R5 crore. This abuse of authority by Sibal to benefit Anil Ambani-controlled RCom needs a thorough investigation by the CBI,? the CPIL thorugh its counsel Prashant Bhushan said in its application.
The over R14,000-crore USOF is used to subsidise rural telephony in the country and all operators contribute 5% of their AGR each year to the fund.
