Now Essar's Ravi Ruia seeks quashing of summons in spectrum case

Days after Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the summons in the additional spectrum grant conspiracy case, Ravi Ruia of Essar Group too today challenged the quashing of summons, which were issued by the Patiala House Court directing him to appear before the court on the April 11.

The case relates to alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum during the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance regime in 2002. Ruia's move comes a day after the Supreme Court directed a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court to postpone its summons to Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal until April 16.

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Sources told CNBC-TV18 that Ruia was summoned as he chaired the Sterling Cellular Board Meet, and thus "represents the directing mind and will of each company", even though the CBI has not pressed any charges against him.

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However, Ruia claims that he has held only a non-executive position in Sterling Cellular (now Vodafone Mobile Service for the Delhi metro area and Hutchison Max for Mumbai metro area) and that Essar Group is only a minority shareholder of Sterling Cellular.

Holding directors of companies guilty is contrary to law, sources told the channel, since Ruia has not been named in the additional spectrum chargesheet and was never investigated in the matter.

The CBI in December charged Bharti Airtel and the two companies that are now part of Vodafone's Indian unit over alleged irregularities in obtaining mobile phone airwaves in 2002, but did not name any company executive.

After going through the records and the charge sheet submitted by CBI, the court had decided on its own that there was enough evidence to move against Sunil Mittal, Ravi Ruia and Asim Ghosh and had issued summons.

The court, in its two-page order, had said that Mittal was the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Bharti Cellular Ltd while Ruia was then a director of Sterling Cellular Ltd and they used to chair the board meetings of their respective companies and the "acts of the companies are to be attributed and imputed to them".