Salman Khurshid, current water resources minister and the former minister in charge of corporate (company) affairs, has denied that his former ministry gave a clearance to Loop Telecom and Essar over the violation of telecom ownership rules.
His clarification has come in the wake of Loop Telecom, one of the firms being probed by the CBI for benefiting from the 2G scam, defended itself by pointing to a statement by the Corporate Affairs ministry in the Parliament about Loop’s ownership.
Khurshid now claims that the statement was merely a repetition of what was there on the books of the ministry, specifically, the Registrar of Companies — the body that is in charge of keeping records about the owners of companies, their revenues, profits etc..
He now claims that his ministry merely checked the records and gave that information to the Parliament. It did not conduct an actual investigation to find out whether Essar — one of India’s biggest industrial conglomerates — held disguised equity in Loop Telecom through overseas companies.
“We are nobody to give the clearance. We only gave the record that is available on the RoC.. It is available to the whole world,” Khurshid said today. Just a few days ago, Loop Telecom had issued a statement saying that the Corporate Affairs ministry has given it a clean chit after investigation.
“It is our understanding that after detailed investigation in this regard, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has opined that Essar does not hold substantial equity in Loop and that Loop is not an associate of Essar,” Loop had said at that time.
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