A special court on Monday fixed January 30 to consider taking cognisance of the CBI charge sheet filed against Airtel, Vodafone and others for alleged irregularities in allocation of additional spectrum to them during the NDA regime.
Special CBI Judge O.P. Saini deferred his order on taking cognisance, on a submission by the agency.
The CBI had filed its charge sheet on December 21 last. Its prosecutor A.K. Singh told the court that all documents relied on by the CBI in the charge sheet were filed but the agency needed two more weeks to submit some more papers in its possession.
The alleged conspirators named in the charge sheet are the then Telecom Minister, Pramod Mahajan; the then Telecom Secretary, Shyamal Ghosh; and telecom majors Bharti Cellular Limited (now known as Bharti Airtel Limited), Hutchison Max Private Limited Mumbai (now Vodafone India) and Sterling Cellular Limited (now Vodafone Mobile Services Limited). They allegedly caused the exchequer a loss of Rs. 846 crore.
Mahajan was not named an accused as he died in 2006.
