Business OpportunitiesSpectrum row: SC questions Centre decision on cut-off date
The centre today faced a tough time in the Supreme Court, which questioned the Telecommunication Ministry"s decision for advancing the cut-off date for allocation of 2G spectrum to new telecom operators.
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A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan queried why the cut-off was first extended from September 25 to October 1 and then the decision was reversed.
"Why was the date extended from September 25 to October 1 when there were already large number of applications," the bench also comprising Justices J M Panchal and B S Chauhan said when the centre submitted that the first deadline of September 25 was extended till October 1 and again it was brought back to earlier cut-off date.
The court made the observation while hearing a petition filed by the Centre challenging the Delhi High Court"s order, which had quashed its decision of advancing the cut-off date and had directed it to consider application of telecom operators, which had applied for spectrum allocation till October 1.
Justifying the decision for advancing the cut-off date, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium said applications of new telecom operators including that of S Tel have not been rejected but kept in abeyance and that the government was only following first-come-first-serve policy for the spectrum allocation.
He submitted the cut-off date was advanced till September 25 as an administrative decision and the rest of the application have been kept in abeyance subject to the availability of spectrum.
When the Bench said the DoT should consider the application of S Tel which had challenged the government"s decision in High Court, the Solicitor General objected saying that it will defeat the first-come-first-serve policy.
"Their applications are not illegal. However, we have stopped to consider applications submitted after September 25 in pursuant to the first-come-first-serve policy," he said.
Subramanium said there was no objection to considering the applications submitted after September 25 but they have to wait till the backlogs are cleared.
However, senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, appearing for S Tel objected to the stand taken by Centre.
After hearing both the sides, the Bench issued notice to S Tel and asked it to file its response in three weeks.
Telecom Minister A Raja had come under fire for his decision to advance the cut-off date to allegedly favour only a handful of companies.
Companies, including Unitech, Swan Telecom, Loop, Datacom and Shyam-Sistema among others were given licences in January 2008 followed by 2G spectrum at a cost of Rs 1,658 crore for pan-India operations.
The DoT has stood its ground that there was no wrongdoing and the decision was taken keeping in mind the availability of spectrum.
However, the high court in its judgement had said "the government would have to justify its decision to revise the cut-off date already fixed after the applications have been received from persons acting on the basis of earlier cut-off date".