Niira Radia's public relations firm counted Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata among its clients. (File photo)
Details of the Supreme Court order asking the CBI yesterday to investigate nearly 15 conversations that corporate lobbyist Niira Radia had with a group of people have emerged.
The leads that the CBI has been asked to investigate implicate corporates like the Tata Group and Anil Ambani's Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group - the former for gaining transport contract in Tamil Nadu and mining in Jharkhand; the latter for fudging subscriber base of its telephone services and for being allocated a coal block in Madhya Pradesh.
Anil Ambani today welcomed the probe, claiming his company has been a victim of a mischievous campaign by unscrupulous corporate rivals.
The investigating agency has also been directed to probe payments of illegal gratification to Income Tax officials and other public servants, some of whose appointments were also allegedly influenced by Ms Radia.
The CBI will also investigate quid pro quo deals between top government officials and the corporates over allotments of contracts, mining leases and other such favours.
The illegal touts and middlemen, and the kickbacks they organised in the aviation sector will also be under the purview of the CBI probe.
Suspecting "collusion between government officials and private enterprise," the top court has given the investigating agency two months to report on the conversations, which amount to criminality and need further probe.
The conversations, which were recorded because Ms Radia's phones were tapped as part of a tax investigation, suggest "deep-rooted malice" and "corrupt means being adopted by private parties to extract gains," the top court judges said.
Ms Radia's public relations firm counted industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata among its clients when her phones were tapped first in 2008 and then in 2009.