Ambani less ‘candid’ than Tata during PAC grilling

Continuing its questioning in connection with the 2G scam, Parliament's public accounts committee (PAC) on Tuesday grilled Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance ADAG that owns Reliance Communications, as well as senior executives of several other telecom companies.

Ambani was kept waiting for over an hour by the PAC before being questioned about his company's stake in Swan Telecom. Ambani was described as being not quite as ''candid'' as Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata during his grilling on Tuesday. He pleaded that since the name of his company and some key officials figure in the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation on the scam, he would not like to say anything which could be used against him in court.

Apart from Ambani, Unitech managing director Sanjay Chandra, DB Realty managing director Vinod Goenka, Etisalat DB Telecom chief executive Atul Jhamb, S Tel's Shamik Das and V Srinivasan, Uninor India chief executive Sigve Brekke and Telenor Asia legal director Charles Woodworth also deposed before the PAC, chaired by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.

The PAC is hardly coy about its proceedings; details are being widely reported in the media as the members seem quite willing to talk. Ambani was apparently asked if Swan was a front company for Reliance and why he had invested more than Rs992 crore through redeemable preference shares in that company. Ambani answered that he had got his money back.

The members then asked why he invested in the company in the first place if it was not a front company. Ambani replied that it was prudent to invest because the new company was sharing "my tower, my cables and my infrastructure".

On being repeatedly asked to explain his investment in Swan, Ambani said he needed 24 hours to come back with some details after consulting documents.