New Delhi: A government appointed auditor is
understood to have found inflation of revenues by Rs 2,915
crores by Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications in
2007-08, besides evasion of Rs 315 crore in licence fee --
findings termed as "biased" by the company.
When contacted DoT sources confirmed receipt of the
report by auditors Parekh and Co and said that it is yet to
examine the findings. DoT would ask for RCom's response later.
"RCom is in full compliance of licence terms and
conditions," a company spokesperson said, adding that
"Auditors' alleged comments are biased and appear instigated
by corporate rivals... Premature leakage of confidential
report to media reflects the Special Auditors' prejudice/bias.
"All revenues for FY'07 and '08 are correctly reported in
RCom's audited account. Alleged comments of special auditor do
not reflect any under-reporting of revenue... licence fees."
The special audit committee report that has been
submitted to the DoT found that for FY'08 actual wireless
revenue earned by the company was only Rs 12,298 crore as
against Rs 15,213 crore reported to the shareholders, which is
an over reporting of Rs 2,915 crore.
It also found that RCom evaded licence fee and spectrum
fee to the tune of Rs 315 crore.
DoT is awaiting the report of four other companies namely
Tata Teleservices, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea from the
respective auditors appointed by it and the government, if
warranted, will take necessary action after examining the
reports.
Sources, quoting the report, said that the telecom firm
may have also violated TRAI and DoT rules.
Alleging overstatement and fudging of revenues, the
auditors have said that the company accounted twice, a revenue
of Rs 617 crore in two different accounting years.
Elsewhere, Rs 379 crore allegedly fudged by way of
selling expired pre-paid cards to two companies namely
Macronet Pvt Ltd and Inference Systems ltd, an ADAG company.
The report on RCom would now be examined by a four-member
committee of Department of Telecom, headed by Member
(Finance), sources said.
The special audit was initiated to check if revenues by
the company were diverted to segments which attracted lower
licence fee.
In case of wrongdoings detected during the audit, sources
said the operators could be subjected to penalties under the
provisions of licences.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, October 12, 2009, 16:18