This is the biggest scam in India that is continuing despite intervention of the Supreme Court. Under the supervision of the apex court, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Malaysia-based Maxis and its promoter T Ananda Krishnan and director Ralph Marshall for forcing C Sivasankaran to sell his company Aircel to Maxis at a price much lower than the market price. Dayanidhi Maran, the then Union Telecom Minister, was involved in it. This became a part of the 2G scam as it basically involved sale of spectrum. Four years later, the scam continues. Krishnan is busy selling spectrum to Indian Telcos, Airtel and R-Com, so that he can get maximum value out of the `32,000-crore empire that he created by using fraudulent and criminal means. The 2G spectrum that he is selling is the same spectrum that Aircel got on first-come-first-served basis at an administered price. The 3G spectrum that he is selling to Airtel was bought from funds raised by the value of the company created out of the 2G spectrum that he got at a low price. In a nutshell, it is basically Indian taxpayers’ money that he is converting into his personal asset. What is shocking is that, in the process, he is making a mockery of the Indian establishment—the government, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Consider this, for last two years, the CBI has not been able to serve summons to Marshall and Krishnan in Malaysia.ED has not been able to trace both of them. But, the promoters of Airtel (Sunil Mittal) and R-Com (Anil Ambani) are engaged in spectrum trading with Krishnan and, in the process, are helping the absconder. Isn’t this surprising? Further, no one is concerned about the huge loan that the company has taken from a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI). What will happen to the loan when Krishnan will sell all the assets (i.e. spectrum) of the company? How will the banks recover their money? Thus, this is a case where the absconder is alleged to have got benefits worth billions of dollars. First, he usurped a telecom company that was allocated spectrum at an administered price through criminal means. Then he pledged the spectrum and got huge loans from Indian banks. When the Government of India initiated legal proceedings against him, he absconded and started selling the assets for his personal gain. Interestingly, the company had earlier sold all its towers to Global Telesystems in a deal worth more than a billion dollar. This happened much before Krishnan was named in the alleged scam. This shows that his intention all through was to exploit the Indian system—get the company and natural assets at a low price and sell it to Indian companies at a higher price. On this issue, the Society for Consumers’ & Investors’ Protection filed a case through leading lawyer Amit Khemka. Mukul Shukla reports.