Manchester riots on scale not seen in 30 years: police
RTL did not hold any equity in Swan Telecom Private Ltd (STPL), alleged beneficiary of the scam, at the time of grant of spectrum licenses in 2008, Iqbal Chagla, counsel for RTL, told Special CBI Judge O P Saini."RTL initially held 9.9 per cent equity in STPL. However, at the time of grant of licenses to STPL, RTL heldno equity in STPL and the charge of conspiracy is untenable," he said.Opposing framing of charges, the defence lawyer said that on January 10, 2008, when the letters of intent (LoIs) were issued to STPL, Reliance Telecom was "nowhere in picture and Balwas (Shahid Usman Balwa and other promoters of STPL) had taken over the firm."Reliance Telecom had "sold its preference shares of Swan Telecom to a company belonging to Balwas on October 17, 2007, and 9.9 per cent equity shares were also sold to Delphi Investment, another independent company", he said."No criminalcase is made out against RTL as it held only 9.9 per cent equity in Swan Telecom much before when STPL was granted the licenses," he said. CBI, in its charge sheet, alleged RTL structured Swan Telecom as its front company to circumvent the then existing telecompolicy which held existing players ineligible for new licenses in the same circle.The Anil Ambani-promoted firm was ineligible to get the spectrum as Department of Telecom (DoT) had debarred the CDMA player from entering into GSM telephony sector, it said.The counsel for RTL denied CBI's allegation that when DoT allowed use of dual technology, RTL washed its hands off Swan Telecom. [More]Tags:manchester riots