Sensing irregularities, the CAG has undertaken an exercise to find out whether the Telecom Department has properly implemented Supreme Court’s judgement cancelling 122 licences in connection with the 2G scam.
The apex auditor had sought clarifications from the department on the reimbursement of thousands of crores of rupees worth licence fee to certain companies whose licences were cancelled by the Supreme Court. According to sources, the CAG auditors raised red flag on reimbursement of licence fees of Videocon, Uninor and Sistema Shyam “in the garb of their participation in the auction” after cancellation of licences.
The DoT’s conduct of auctions after the SC verdict would also come within the ambit of audit. To get back the fees paid for the tainted licences, some of these companies wrongly claimed to the Government that the licences were cancelled by Supreme Court for “no fault of theirs”. After the cancellation of 122 licences of nine companies, the fee of around Rs 14,000 crore was seized by the Telecom Department and many companies approached the Government for the reimbursement. But the licence clause and guidelines of DoT prohibited such reimbursement if the cancellation was due to violations on the part of licence holders.
As part of the auditing the implementation of the SC judgement, the CAG is expected to approach Supreme Court registry for accessing the details of the case as well as the petitions and affidavits filed by the telecom companies and DoT. It is learned that the CAG’s P&T Audit Wing’s queries were not satisfactorily answered by the Telecom Department with regard to reimbursement of licences.
The auditors move to assess the conduct of auction, which failed to bring in desired revenue and non-placing of certain spectrum bands in the auction are expected to create friction between CAG and DoT in the coming days. The UPA Government and its managers had come out openly against the CAG for its findings of huge losses up to Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the dubious allotment of telecom licences in 2008. Former CAG Vinod Rai was summoned and grilled five times by the Congress-dominated JPC over the findings in the 2G scam.