* Adonis Projects, Nahan Properties, Aska Projects, Volga Properties, Azare Properties & Hudson Properties were acquired by Unitech. Unitech Infrastructure and Unitech Builders & Estates were already subsidiaries of Unitech Group. So in 2008 Unitech had 22 2G licenses. Later in the same year Norway based company Telenor bought majority stake in the telecom company from the Unitech Group. Now it offers services under Uninor brand holding 22 pan India licences. * Operates under brand name Videocon Telecommunications Limited- 21 2G licenses * Loop telecom-21 2G licenses * Shyam Telelink Limited & Shyani Telelink Limited operate together with their combined 21 licenses. During late 2008 Russia based group Sistema bought majority stake in the telecom company and now they operate under brand name MTS India * In 2008, Swan Telecom (15 2g licence) merged itself with Allianz Infratech (P) Ltd. During late 2008 Abu Dhabi's Etisalat bought about 45 percent of the company and renamed it to Etisalat DB Telecom. * Idea Cellular bought Spice Communications Ltd. in 2008 for an amount of 2,700 crore (US$488.7 million). So out of 122 spectrum licenses sold in 2008 Idea Cellular owns 13 licenses. However of the 13 licenses, only 7 of the licenses are in use by the company and the rest are overlapping licenses. * In January 2009, Bahrain Telecommunications signed a deal with S Tel to buy 49% shares in S Tel for $225 million. C Sivasankaran owns the remaining (51%) share. In May 2009, Sahara Group bought 11.7% stake in S Tel. * In late 2008 promoters of Tata Teleservices sold 26% equity stake to a Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo for about 13,070 crore (US$2.37 billion) or an enterprise value of 50,269 crore (US$9.1 billion).

Name of company | Parent group | Number of licenses cancelled | Uninor | Joint venture between Unitech Group of India and Telenor of Norway Unitech Group | 22 | Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited, now MTS India | Joint venture between Shyam group of Indian and Sistema of Russia | 21 | Loop Mobile formerly BPL Mobile | Owned by Khaitan Holding Group | 21 | Videocon Telecommunications Limited | Owned by Videocon group of India | 21 | Etisalat-DB | Joint venture between Swan Telecom of India and Etisalat of UAE | 15 | Idea Cellular | Aditya Birla Groupof India (49.05%), Axiata Group Berhad of Malaysia (15%) & Providence Equity(10.6%)of USA | 13 | S Tel | Joint venture between C Sivasankaran of India and Batelco of Bahrain. After the Supreme Court's decision Batelco sold its 42.7% stake to C Sivasankaran company Sky City Foundation Ltd. for $175 million | 6 | Tata Teleservices | Owned by Tata Group of India | 3 |

Aftereffects of Supreme Court's verdict * Batelco quits India - Batelco, the Bahrain telecommunications company holding 42.7% stake in S Tel declared that it has agreed to sell its entire holding to Indian partner Sky City Foundation Ltd for 65.8 million Bahraini dinar ($174.5 million). * Telenor terminates agreement and sues Unitech - On 21 February 2012 Telenor, majority stakeholder in Uninor, terminated its agreement with its Indian partner Unitech and sued it seeking “indemnity and compensation”. * Etisalat sues Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka - On 23 February 2012 Etisalat of the Etasalat-DB Telecom sued Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, promoters of its Indian partner DB Realty for fraud and misrepresentation.

What is spectrum? What is its relation with mobile phone services?
Spectrum is airwaves. Each operator is assigned a set of frequencies. In normal basic telephone service, a pair of wires is used for communication. But in case of mobile/wireless communications, airwaves are used instead of wires. These spectrum/airwaves are licensed by the Government. It is allocated in Mega Hertz
(MHz) in telecom licenses. 4.2 MHz is given as start-up spectrum, which is topped up by 1.8 MHz to make it 6 MHz (4.2 + 1.8 MHz), and so on.

spectrum is called a scarce national resource, The frequencies are limited. This is why it is called scarce resource.
What is the 2G spectrum and 3G?
2G is the 2nd Generation of mobile phone services. Next phase of mobile services is
3G, or 3rd Generation. The difference between 2G and 3G is that we can have faster internet services in 3G, whereas in 2G the speed is slow

How the telecom operation is administered?
The entire country is divided into 22 Telecom Circles and Metros. Each state is one circle, like Bihar, UP (E), UP (W), Tamil Nadu, etc. All the seven sisterly states in the
North East except Assam, comes under a single circle called North East Circle. There are now three Metros (Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata), the fourth Metro (Chennai) was combined in Tamil Nadu circle. For every Circle or a Metro, a separate telecom license is issued. For each license, separate applications are to be submitted. We call a company is having a Pan-India license, when that company has telecom licenses for all the 22 Telecom Circles and Metros. A Pan-India license (in fact 22 licenses) was issued for an Entry Fee of Rs 1,658 crore during an open bidding in the year 2001.
This rate eventually became reference rates for licenses issued in future under FCFS policy, and is a matter of scam.

Comptroller Auditor General of India (CAG) started auditing of new licenses in
March 2010. On 8.11.2010, CAG submitted its report to the President of India in which it estimated the loss on account of 2G scam as Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Apart from this, it also found that of the 122 licenses issued on 10.01.2008, 85 licenses were issued to companies which were not eligible to get license.

Initially, a Delhi based NGO, Telecom Watchdog, complained to the investigating agencies. When the investigation was slow or non-existent, later two Delhi based
NGOs (Centre for Public Interest Litigation, Telecom Watchdog) and one senior journalist Mr Pranjoy Guha Thukrata filed a PIL in Delhi High Court pleading for
Court monitored investigation. It was dismissed. Thereafter an appeal was filed by them in the Supreme Court, which was allowed. Now, the Supreme Court is directly monitoring the investigation of this case.

Which are the companies that are being investigated?
The following companies received the licenses in January 2008 from Mr Raja:
Unitech (Unionor), Swan Telecom (DB Etisalat), Loop Telecom, STel,
Datacom/Videocon, Shyam Telecom (MTS), Spice, Idea, Reliance Communications, and Tata. The investigation is being done against all of them. In addition, certain companies of Raja’s associates and Ms Nira Radia are also being investigated for the routing of money.

What must the government do to recover this loss?
The only way that the government can recover the loss is by cancelling all the 122 licenses and recover spectrum from them. Thereafter, the spectrum can be put on sale and even these 122 licensees should be able to participate in the auction process to resume their services. This should be done independent of the criminal proceedings that will be initiated against them for bribing.

What are the arrests which have been made in this scam?
As on 13.2.2011, CBI has arrested four people. Mr A Raja, Mr Siddharatha Behura
(Secretary-DoT), and Mr RK Chandolia (PS to Mr Raja) were arrested first.
Thereafter, Mr Balwa (MD of DB Group, and promoter of Swan Telecom) was also arrested. Were bribes paid to Raja?
Yes. The CBI and ED’s investigations have revealed that substantial investment
(money) coming into the accounts of people/companies associated with Mr Raja. This money is coming from many companies in India and abroad. As per media reports, so far Rs 3,000 crore has been linked to the bribes paid to Mr Raja and DMK party and the Mr Karunaidhi’s relatives. This is even revealed in Raida tapes.

What was the role of the former telecom minister A Raja in this scam?
He played multiple tricks to ensure that the spectrum is allocated to its favourite companies. First, Reliance Communication (Anil Ambani Group) wanted entry into GSM segment as there was not much of demand in CDMA. The company applied for fresh license through Swan, and also applied for dual-technology permission. In October
2007, Mr Raja allowed dual technology. But it appears that Reliance gave away the control of Swan to DB Group (Shahid Balwa), who was close to Mr Raja. The advantage with this company (Swan) was that it had already applied for licenses in
March 2007.
Second, Essar Group (Ruias brother) also applied for a license under Loop Telecom through her sister Ms Kiran Khaitan. Ms Khiatan spent Rs 100,000 to create Loop
Telecom and the balance money of Rs 1,700 crore came from Ruias. They could not have applied for license as they already had operation through Vodafone-Essar company in which they had 33% equity stake. This major illegality was ignored by
Raja.
Third, he also had old association with the Unitech Group, which had interest in the construction activities. This group under different names applied for Pan-Indian licenses on 24.09.2007.
Fourth, Shyam Telecom (Mr Rajiv Malhotra, MD) has very close relationship with
Congress because of which Mr Malhotra also had close relationship with Mr Raja.
This company applied for 21 licenses on 25.09.2007. These dates 24th (For Unitech) and 25th for Shyam are very important as discussed later.
Only Raja knew in advance what he is going to do with the policy. On 25.09.2007 he issued a Press Release (dated 24.09.2007) declaring the cut-off date for receiving applications as 01.10.2007. So, Mr Raja ensured that after his favourite companies have submitted the applications, the window is closed shortly. He opened the window for only five working days. But even during those five days as many as 343 new applications were received. This he did not expect. As on October 1, 2007, the government had 575 pending applications for telecom licenses.
So, then Mr Raja sought advice of Ministry of Law. The ministry replied that the matter should be referred to GoM. Mr Raja protested on this. He wrote to Mr Pranab
Mukherjee, and also to the PM. Within his ministry, two senior officers had objected to his approach. Mr Raja waited for their retirement on December 31, 2007. He brought in his favourite officer (Mr Siddhartha Behura as Secretary DoT). Thereafter, he got the PM’s nod on January 3, 2008.
On January 10, 2008, he issued first Press Release on DoT’s web site stating that the applications of only those have been considered who had applied till 25.09.2007. This way he preponed the cut-off date to suit his favourite companies. Thereafter, he put up another Press Release at about 2:45pm on the same day disclosing a list of shortlisted companies and asking them to come between 3:30 to 4:30 PM to collect the LOIs. He also said that whosoever complies with the conditions of LOIs first (that means deposit of Rs 1,658 crore by draft, Bank Guarantees worth several hundred crores separate for each service areas), will be issued spectrum first. So, his friends knew about these conditions. They kept their drafts and guarantees ready one day in advance and were first to comply with LOI condition and were first to get spectrum.
This way even the FCFS policy was altered; earlier it used to be date of application and everyone used to be given 15 days time for compliance; Mr Raja even changed the FCFS policy to date of compliance of LOIs.
Later, the CAG found that out of 122 licenses, 85 did not meet eligibility criteria.

What is the 2G spectrum Scam?
The government awarded 122 telecom licenses with 2G spectrum in January 2008 at
2001 rates (Rs 1,685 crore) ignoring the current market value of the spectrum. In
February 2007, Hutch sold its 67% equity to Vodafone at Rs 75,000 cr signaling substantial increase in spectrum value. Even if 15% of this is considered to be spectrum value, then it is Rs 11,250 crore per pan-India licenses. However, Raja ignores this price. In November 2007, S-TEL offered Rs 6,000 cr for pan-India license; in December 2007, it increased the offer to Rs 13,752 crore. This was also ignored by Raja.
After obtaining licenses at cheap rates, the private companies sold (diluted) their equities to foreign telecom companies at a very high price. Every company that had pan-India licenses was valued at about Rs 10,000 cr in which it had assets of 2G spectrum (Rs 1,659 cr. Thus, the difference in these figures (Rs 10,000 cr and Rs
1,659 cr) is per pan-India license loss to the Government and gain to private companies. - Shyam Telecom: Sold 74% to Sistema of Russia (MTS brand)
- Unitech: Sold 67% to Telenor of Norway (Uninor brand)
- Swan Telecom: Sold DB Group about 45% to Etisalat, UAE (Cheers brand) and
5% to Genex, Chennai
- Tata Teleservice: Sold 26% to NTT of Japan (DoCoMo brand)