In what could spell fresh trouble for Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the CBI has started probing the Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s (FIPB) alleged violations and irregularities in giving approval to the Aircel-Maxis deal. Chidambaram was the FIPB Chairman then.
The move follows the Supreme Court’s direction to the CBI, which had for the last one year limited its probe to Maran’s arm-twisting of Aircel promoter Sivasankaran in this case.
While directing the CBI to apprise it of the status of the ongoing probe in telecom scams, the apex court on March 18 also asked the agency to respond to the FIPB’s violations, as cited by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy in a petition. Swamy later wrote to the CBI Director reminding him of the court’s directions.
On Friday, DIG Santosh Rastogi informed Swamy, “The issue pertaining to FIPB approval given in Aircel-Maxis deal is already being looked into by CBI during the course of investigation of case.”
The CBI is expected to submit the details to the court in a sealed cover in the next sitting, scheduled next week.
The controversial FIPB approval to Aircel-Maxis deal was given in the meetings chaired by Finance Minister Chidambaram in 2006. As per the norms, only 74 per cent of foreign investment was permissible in telecom sector but the Malaysian company Maxis’ declaration to their home stock exchange exposed that they have acquired more than 99 per cent in Aircel.
The shareholding pattern and variation in share values were also dubious. The company said that 74 per cent was allotted to Maxis for around Rs3,700 crore, while the rest 26 per cent was allotted at a pittance of Rs280 crore.
When this issue rocked Parliament in May 2012, Chidambaram said on these two issues that “the law can be set in motion”, admitting irregularities. Moreover, his son Karti’s role was exposed in the deal and FIPB’s approval on different times to different companies also made the Government unanswerable in the Parliament debates. “Better to plunge a dagger into my heart,” rather raise such allegation, replied an embarrassed Chidambaram in the debate, leading to a walkout by the Opposition parties.