2G case: Supreme Court to hear Sunil Mittal's plea on April 8

The Supreme Court today posted to April 8 the hearing of Bharti Airtel Ltd chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal's plea against the summoning order by a special CBI court in the additional spectrum allocation case.

Mr. Mittal had been summoned by the court on April 11 as an accused in a case over alleged corruption in allocating mobile phone bandwidth more than a decade ago, along with Asim Ghosh, the former head of Vodafone-Essar, Ravi Ruia, one of the founders of Essar Group, and former Telecom Secretary Shyamal Ghosh.

Following this, Mr. Mittal moved the Supreme Court on April 1 for quashing the order against him.

In 2002, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone's India unit were charged by the Central Bureau of Investigation over alleged irregularities in allotting mobile spectrum when the BJP-led NDA coalition was in power. The charge sheet did not name any individual executives.

Mr. Mittal, Mr. Ghosh and Mr. Ruia were named as the accused because "they represent the directing mind and will of each company", Judge O.P. Saini had said in his order.

Bharti had said at that time that while it was 'saddened' at the summons being issued, it will 'fight' the charges.

Singapore-based telecom firm SingTel, which holds over 30 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel, had said in a statement that it has full faith in the company's corporate governance standards under the leadership of Mr. Mittal.