Moily to relook into Essar-Loop shareholding pattern

Minister for ensuring that Ministry does not "cover up anything"

PTI | July 20, 2011



Newly-appointed Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily on Tuesday said he wants to take a relook at the issue of Essar shareholding in Loop Telecom to ensure that his Ministry does not "cover up anything".

"I want to very much relook at the Essar-Loop case...I don't want the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to cover up anything.... There are certain controversies which have arisen in this case," Moily said in an interview to NDTV.

The MCA has so far given two reports -- in 2009 and 2011 -- on cross holding of shares of Essar in Loop Telecom.

In both, the MCA has said that Essar's stake in Loop is less than 10 per cent even as the figure varied in two communications.

In a report of 2009, the MCA had said that Essar has 9.9 per cent stake, while in its recent communication it said Essar's stake was just 2.15 per cent. According to licence norms, cross-holding of less than 10 per cent is permisible.

The CBI in its status report filed in the Supreme Court had questioned MCA's two different versions. The CBI is investigating whether Essar used Loop as a front company to corner spectrum in violation of the guidelines.

"We will work in accordance with the rules of the game and which is prescribed in the Companies Law Act, and any other regulation which we have formed, and definitely this is the matter which I will like to look into it. I would like to see the hard facts and find out whether anything has gone wrong and anything has to be set right," Moily said.

Loop got spectrum licence during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja, who is in jail facing charges of large scale irregularities in allocating licence and 2G spectrum.
 

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