SC rejects review petition of telecom firms in 2G license cancellation

05 Apr 2012 Evaluate

The Supreme Court (SC) has rejected pleas of 7 telecom companies for reconsideration of its judgment in 2G scam. It has however agreed to hear the Centre’s plea on allocation of natural resources through the first-come-first-served (FCFS) route, in an open court on April 13.

The decision has come as a big blow to all the telecom firms whose 2G licenses were quashed by the court in February. The companies now have been left with no option other than either buying back the spectrum through auction or exit completely. Dismissing the operators' plea, a bench comprising Justice G S Singhvi and Justice K S Radhakrishnan has observed that its earlier judgment does not suffer from any error warranting its re-consideration.

In a landmark decision in February, the court had delivered a ruling cancelling 122 licenses on grounds of illegality. The companies whose review petitions were dismissed are Videocon Telecommunications, S Tel, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Tata Teleservices, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu), Etisalat DB Telecom and Idea Cellular.

The Court has also ruled that FCFS policy of the government was also flawed. The government on the other hand in its review petition had not questioned the cancellation of licences but contended that it was wrong on Supreme Court's part to ‘engage' in policy making. It said that policy lies with the executive, even according to earlier court rulings.

The court has agreed to hear the Center’s plea in an open court on April 13. The fate of the review petition will have repercussions for several other sectors such as mining where currently the first-come-first-served policy is used to allocate scarce resources.

The Government had separately filed a clarificatory petition seeking more time to conduct fresh 2G spectrum auctions. The court had directed in February that the auction process should be completed within four months but the government wanted 400 days. This petition has so far not been listed by the court for consideration.

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