Agencies screening internal papers of Infocomm
Sunday, June 12 2005 11:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time - 
New Delhi:
Security agencies are scrutinising purported internal communication between top officials of the country's biggest telecom operator, Reliance Infocomm (RIC) to check whether national security was impacted in re-routing of international calls as local ones by the company.
RIC has been fined Rs 150 crore in March by Department of Telecom for re-routing calls, an action upheld by Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), although the company has denied any wrong doings.
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Well-placed sources said the agencies have collected over a hundred documents, including more than two dozen e-mails, purportedly exchanged between top officials of Reliance Infocomm about the operations of the Home Country Direct Service under which international calls were re-routed.
Informed sources said today (Jun 12, 2005) that exercise is on to check veracity of the e-mails understood to have been collected since January this year from various places, including from the Company's head office in Mumbai.
The development assumes importance in the wake of a top ranking Infocomm official Akhil Gupta, who recently quit the company, blowing the whistle against the re-routing operations by reportedly sending some e-mails to Mukesh Ambani, the company Chairman.
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While Infocomm spokesperson had debunked as "misleading" the reports about the e-mails, Gupta had declined to comment on his communication sent to the Chairman.
The probe into the alleged call re-routing was being done by various security agencies including the CBI, which had stumbled upon the case when it unearthed an illegal telephone exchange in Chennai last year.
The sources said the security agencies were looking for the originating as well as the recipient computers of these mails so that they could be used as corroborative evidence while deciding on whether to file a case.
Some of the papers in the possession of agencies also relate to purported dealings with officials in the Department of Telecom and two PSUs in the sector - BSNL and MTNL.
The CBI was also awaiting a communication from Department of Telecommunication for a notification to carry out a probe in the alleged call re-routing.
CBI is carrying out an in-house probe, an exercise done before proceeding with a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) or filing of a regular case if warranted. CBI officials were not willing to comment on the issue.
PTI
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