2G: Spice was 'ready' with DD prior to announcement

A Spice group official today told a Delhi court that Spice Communications Ltd was "ready" with demand drafts for payment of entry fee even before the announcement for issuance of letters of intent (LoIs) by the Department of Telecom (DoT).

Deposing as a prosecution witness before special CBI judge OP Saini, who is hearing the 2G spectrum scam case, Spice group firm S Mobility's executive director Preeti Malhotra said the company had prepared some documents in anticipation of issuance of LOIs on January 10, 2008.

She added she along with other officials of the firm had gone to Sanchar Bhawan on January 10, 2008 to collect the LoIs and after collecting them, she had handed over the same to her colleagues who had begun completing formalities like attaching bank guarantees and demand drafts etc.

Malhotra's statement assumes significance as the CBI, in its first charge sheet filed on April 2 last year, had alleged that Unitech Ltd and Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd, facing trial in the case, had "prior knowledge" of the first-come-first-served (FCFS) process and they were keeping the demand draft ready since early October-November 2007 itself.

"After collecting the LOIs, I came downstairs and handed over the same to Umang Das and Akhilesh Saxena (company officials). They started doing certain formalities like attaching bank guarantees, demand drafts etc. "By that time, our chief financial officer (CFO) had also reached almost at the same time with the bank guarantees. After completing the formalities, all of us left Sanchar Bhawan at the same time," she said.

"CFO of my company got the drafts prepared for payment of entry fee on January 9, 2008 itself. We did not have any inside information from any source in the DoT. We had prepared some documents in anticipation of issuance of LOIs," she said.