NEW DELHI – Five senior Indian corporate executives accused in an alleged mobile phone licence sales fraud which may have cost the country up to $40 billion in lost revenue were arrested on Wednesday. The men were taken into custody after a special court hearing the case rejected their bail pleas, citing the “magnitude” of the corruption scandal — potentially the biggest in independent India’s history.
The five executives had been charged earlier this month with cheating, forgery and abetment to crime but not detained. They joined six other men already in New Delhi’s crowded Tihar Jail who include ex-telecom minister A. Raja, government officials and businessmen. Raja, a low-caste politician from a regional party in Premier Manmohan Singh’s national Congress-led coalition, quit late last year over charges that mobile licences were sold in 2008 at cut-rate prices in exchange for kickbacks.
He faces charges including abuse of power, conspiracy and forgery and is suspected of rigging rules for the sale of second-generation (2G) mobile licences to favour some firms. The businessmen imprisoned on Wednesday included Gautam Doshi, managing director of Reliance Telecom, part of tycoon Anil Ambani’s Reliance ADA Group, and two others working for the telecom unit.
