2G scam: Chandolia forced DoT into favouring Swan

NEW DELHI: R K Chandolia, one of the main conspirators of the 2G scam, felt powerful being a close aide of A Raja. He often threatened several senior telecom ministry officials to ensure smooth grant of spectrum to Swan Telecom and also minted money by renting his house to a telecom firm.

Chandolia became close to executives of DB Realty - Swan telecom - and rented his residential property C-6/39 (second floor), Safdarjung Development Area to Associated Hotels Pvt Ltd, a sister concern of DB Realty Ltd, on March 3, 2009, on a monthly rent of Rs 63,000.

The CBI probe revealed Chandolia pressured senior ministry officials to allocate spectrum license to Swan Telecom in preference to Tata Teleservices Ltd which, according to the department of telecom policy, was the preferred firm for allocation of spectrum in Delhi.

"Accused R K Chandolia, by abusing his official position as a public servant, pressurized and threatened R P Aggarwal, the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing chief, to put up the file for
allocation of spectrum to Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd," economic affairs secretary R Gopalan has noted in the CBI finding while according sanction to the CBI to prosecute the IES officer.

"It clearly shows his criminal conspiracy with A Raja in getting the spectrum allocated to Swan Telecom prior to Tata Teleservices Ltd, which did not get the spectrum in Delhi because available spectrum here was sufficient to cater to the requirement of only one licensee," said Gopalan's order dated April 1, 2011.

The CBI, during its probe, has found that Chandolia often used to resort to strong arm tactics to pressure senior ministry officials in carrying out Raja's diktats. Gopalan's order noted that Chandolia had devised an 'unprecedented' methodology of setting up four counters in Sanchar Bhavan's committee room on January 10, 2008 for grant of Letters of Intent to various applicant telecom firms.