Aircel-Maxis deal: Supreme Court orders 4 accused to appear before Special Court

The Supreme Court on Friday said that the four accused in the Aircel-Maxis case would have to appear before the Special Court and the scheduled the hearing on February 3, 2017.The SC said Aircel spectrum was to be seized & transferred within 2 weeks if the controller & owners did not appear in court in connection with the case. Earlier yesterday, the Chennai High Court had dismissed a bunch of petitions challenging the summons by the Enforcement Directorate citing that the Aircel-Maxis deal was being heard by the Supreme Court. One of these petitions had been filed by former Union Minister P Chidambaram. Karti Chidambaram and Advantage Strategic Consultants Private Limited’s directors were among the other known petitioners, who had challenged the ED summoning. Karti, in his petition, had contended that the summons was a malice in law and added that the summons was campaign was to aim to bear ill reputation of his father, P Chidambaram. Justice B Rajendran had concurred with the Centre’s counsel and said that the matters related to the case were being monitored by the Apex Court.

Earlier in September, senior advocate Harish Salve had appeared for the accused and said that the Aircel-Maxis case was in no way related to the 2G spectrum scam. He had argued that the Chennai-based Telecom promoter C Sivasankaran had been unduly pressured by the then Telecom Minister Dayanidhi to sell the stake in Aircel to Ananda Krishnan owned Maxis in 2006 but it had nothing to do with the 2G scam.

The trial court, however, had said that the Aircel-Maxis deal fell “fairly and squarely falls within the description of 2G scam”. The CBI had earlier alleged that Dayanidhi had “pressured” and “forced” Sivasankaran to sell his stakes in Aircel and two subsidiary firms to Malaysian firm Maxis Group in 2006. The Malaysian firm had favoured by Dayanidhi and granted a licence within six months after the takeover of Aircel in December 2006, it had said. Ex-Telecom Secretary J S Sarma was also named in the CBI’s charge sheet. His name was put in a column of the accused against whom trial cannot proceed.