Videocon’s Dhoot and MP brother questioned

Videocon group chairman Venugopal N Dhoot and his brother and Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Rajkumar N Dhoot were questioned by the CBI on Monday in connection with the 2G scam.

Videocon group chairman Venugopal N Dhoot and his brother and Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Rajkumar N Dhoot were questioned by the CBI on Monday in connection with the 2G scam.

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The brothers were questioned for more than six hours in the CBI headquarters and confronted with documents regarding the paid-up capital of Datacom Solutions Private Limited, which became Videocon Telecommunications Limited after the Dhoots bought a stake in the company.

Datacom had got 21 unified access service (UAS) licences on January 10, 2008.

The CAG has raised several isssues on the grant of licence. The CAG report said that Datacom Solutions while submitting its application for 22 licences on August 28, 2007, had made a false claim of the paid-up capital of R150 crore through company secretary although the memorandum of association and article of association with the applications indicated the authorised share capital of the company as R1 lakh only.

According to the CAG report, on November 27, 2007, the company suo motu submitted a “correct” version of documents as on August 28, 2007, stating that they had submitted an old version of documents inadvertently along with the application. The new version claimed to have increased the authorised share capital from R1 lakh to R150 crore through an ordinary resolution passed in the extraordinary general meeting on August 27, 2007, a day preceding the date of submission of applications.

Interestingly, Videocon Industries Limited had also applied for the UAS licences, but as the cut-off date for applications was advanced from October 1, 2007 to September 25, 2007 they were not considered.