>>> by acquiring the only firm that won a pan-India 4G license.
IIRC, that farm was simply a proxy with some back channel deals. Parent Company didn’t want their names in auction, that would have made the auction much more expensive. So they acquired the spectrum trough a front-face farm and later acquired it.
AFAIK the original purchase was much cheaper because the spectrum was assigned for IPTV, not telephony. The government later 'regularized' it, that being a euphemism for being bribed enough to change the allowed use of the spectrum.
IIRC, that farm was simply a proxy with some back channel deals. Parent Company didn’t want their names in auction, that would have made the auction much more expensive. So they acquired the spectrum trough a front-face farm and later acquired it.