Punit Paranjpe/Reuters Anil D. Ambani, right, chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, and his wife Tina Ambani in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on June 26, 2005.A Delhi court ruled Friday that Anil D. Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance Group, and his wife, Tina, will have to testify in the investigation of the government’s sale of telecommunications licenses at below-market prices.
India’s premier investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is looking into the corruption scandal known as the “2G scam,†had appealed for the appearance of 13 new witnesses in court, including the Ambanis, according to a Reuters report.
Mr. Ambani’s lawyers will challenge the ruling that summons Ambanis as prosecution witnesses, according to local media reports.
The controversy involved wireless phone licenses awarded at a price set in 2001 in a process that favored certain companies. The scandal has also implicated senior leaders, for either supporting the tainted licensing or doing nothing to stop it. Andimuthu Raja, the former telecommunications minister, was jailed on charges of misusing his post to sell off valuable mobile telephone spectrum licenses in 2008 at rock-bottom prices.
One government auditor estimated in 2010 that the government had lost as much as 1.8 trillion rupees ($30 billion at current exchange rates) by not using an auction to sell the licenses.
Three senior executives of Mr. Ambani’s telecommunications company, Reliance Telecom Limited, were arrested in 2011 after being accused of illegally applying for telecom licenses and wireless spectrum through another company, Swan Telecom, in 2008. The promoters of Swan, Shahid Balwa and Vivek Goenka, who are also being investigated, were released on bail after being arrested two years ago.
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