After The Pioneer expose, Raja attempted to manipulate the WiMax franchise allotment through another route. On May 6, 2009, this newspaper reported that BSNL was arm-twisted to shortlist five shell companies floated by one Sanjay Kapoor, another close associate of Raja. All the five companies floated in the name of Kapoor’s close relatives were formed on a single day, with same notary, same auditor, same witness and same e-mail ID for contacts.
After the PMO’s intervention during the initial days of UPA-2, the new EoI was floated with strict terms on annual turnover (Rs 100 crore per year) and experience in the WiMax sector. But this did not prevent Raja from issuing an LoI to his preferred Malaysian partner.
Incidentally, the BSNL never revealed the name change of Ampoules to Starnet, understandably because the CBI had already started investigation into the 2G spectrum scam and quizzed officials of companies like Green House Promoters, Equaas Estates and Kovai Sheltors Private Limited, controlled by Raja’s kith, kin and friends. “By not bringing Starnet into the picture, they thought they could escape the radar of probe agencies,” a CVC official said.
Raja had misled even Parliament on this issue. In the Rajya Sabha on March 2010, his Ministry declared that the shortlisted WiMax operation, Ampoules, had the mandated turnover of Rs 100 crore per year for the last two years. This was in sharp contrast to the RoC documents, which showed the Ampoules turnover as ‘nil’.
According to the RoC documents, the company had filed six years’ annual turnover statements in just two days, on September 21-22, 2009, with zero turnovers. CPI(M) MPs Sitraram Yechury and Prasanta Chatterjee had written three letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, pointing out the violations in appointing “Raja’s benami company” Ampoules the franchisee of six circles.
The Pioneer has learnt that the CBI received several complaints about this murky deal, but the agency never took any steps to probe the matter.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/301680/Raja-sinks-deeper-into-quagmire.html
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