[2] Raja was also accused of not following rules and regulations as well as not recognizing any advice from the Ministries of Finance and Law and Justice of India while allotting 2G spectrum licenses to telecom operators.
[12] In another letter that month, the Ministry of Finance expressed procedural concerns to the DOT;[12] these were ignored, and the cut-off date was moved forward from 1 October to 25 September 2007.
[12] Although the policy for awarding licences was first-come, first-served, which was introduced during Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government, Raja changed the rules so it applied to compliance with conditions instead of the application itself.
[85] On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on petitions filed by Subramanian Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan, challenging the 2008 allotment of 2G licenses,[214] cancelling all 122 spectrum licences granted during Raja's term as communications minister.
[219][220] In addition to Batelco's exit, on 21 February 2012 Telenor (the majority shareholder in Uninor) terminated its agreement with Unitech and sued it for "indemnity and compensation".
[224][225][226] On 23 February 2012, Etisalat of Etasalat-DB Telecom sued DB Realty corporate promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka for fraud and misrepresentation.
[143][144][145] On 8 February 2012, the Enforcement Directorate registered a money-laundering case against the Maran brothers[180] for allegedly receiving illegal compensation of about ₹ 5.5 billion in the Aircel-Maxis deal.
In September 2012, the CBI said it finished its Indian investigation and was awaiting the response to a letter rogatory sent to Malaysia and a questionnaire from T. Ananda Krishnan before filing a chargesheet.
[232] On 29 August 2014, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran, Malaysian businessman T Ananda Krishnan, Malaysian national Augustus Ralph Marshall, six others and four firms — Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd, Maxis Communication Berhad, Astro All Asia Network PLC and South Asia Entertainment Holding Ltd as accused in the case.
[233] On 29 October 2014, special CBI judge OP Saini said that he found enough evidence to proceed with the prosecution and hence summoned former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and others as accused.
[234] Based on the CBI chargesheet, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 1 April 2015, attached Maran brothers' properties worth Rs 7,420 million.
According to Swamy, Chidambaram withheld Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance of the deal until his son received the five-percent share in Siva's company.
[237] Although he and the government denied the allegations,[238] The Pioneer and India Today reported the existence of documents showing that Chidambaram delayed approval of the foreign direct investment proposal by about seven months.
[249] The JPC criticised the CBI for its leniency to the PM, the Attorney General, Dayanidhi Maran and Chidambaram and its reluctance to investigate their roles on 24 July 2012.
[253] At that time, comptroller Vinod Rai issued show-cause notices to Unitech, S Tel, Loop Mobile, Datacom (Videocon) and Etisalat to respond to his assertion that the 85 licenses granted to these companies did not have the capital required at application or were otherwise illegal.
[254] In June 2011 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticised the CAG for commenting on policy issues, warning it "to limit the office to the role defined in the constitution.
It cited the Supreme Court ruling of 2 February 2012 that the actions of Raja and officers at the Department of Telecom were "wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the public interest, apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality.
[207][257][258][259] Special Judge OP Saini stated in his judgement: "There is no evidence on the record produced before the Court indicating any criminality in the acts allegedly committed by the accused persons.” He added that “the chargesheet of the instant case is based mainly on misreading, selective reading, non-reading and out of context reading of the official record” and that "the chargesheet is based on some oral statements made by the witnesses during investigation, which the witnesses have not owned up in the witness box.”[260] On 19 and 20 March 2018, the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI respectively filed appeals against trial court verdict in the Delhi High Court.