Sunday, November 27 2005 20:21 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Estimating a loss of over Rs 50 crore to the Government due to alleged re-routing of international phone calls as local ones by Reliance Infocomm, the CBI may question some of former top executives of the private telecom giant and convert the Prelimnary Enquiry into a regular case.

Investigations after registering the PE on September 15 by the Economic Offences wing of the agency's Chennai branch, CBI secured all files from Deprtament of Tele-communications (DoT) from which the agency claimed the loss to the exchequer could go beyond Rs 50 crore, agency sources said.

The agency, in its PE regietered against unnamed officials of Reliance and DoT, had alleged the Telecomm giant had manipulated Caller Line Identification (CLI) system for international calls and routed them as local calls.

The CBI, probing the case after the matter was referred to it by Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), is also likely to question some of the top executives of the Reliance group who were incharge of the Telcommunication section before the division of property in Ambani family.

Anil Ambani got Reliance Infocomm as part of the settlement of the Reliance empire with his brother Mukesh in June who had headed the private telecom giant prior to the split.

Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), while imposing a penalty of Rs 150 crore on Reliance Infocomm for allegedly breaching the license conditions, had also said in its order that this breach has put the "security of the nation in jeopardy."

Before the CVC handed over the case to CBI, the agency had already stumbled upon involvement of some private telecom companies and DOT oficials fduring its probe into illegal telephone exchanges busted in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh recently during a special drive on February two this year.

The agency sources claimed telephone cards were circulated in the US and Canada where they were offering calls to India at 80 to 82 cents per minute.

The sources said the cards were being made available for evidence on record but if a formal case was registered into the case, an overseas probe was needed.