Telecom tangle

The Supreme Court has rejected the pleas of seven telecom companies asking it to reconsider its judgment cancelling 122 2G licenses in 22 telecom circles. However, it agreed to hear in open court the Union government’s petition seeking review of its direction to auction these annulled licences. A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan heard the review petitions of Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecom, S Tel, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Unitech Wireless (TN) Pvt Ltd, Etisalat DB Telecom and Idea Cellular in chamber on Tuesday. “We have carefully perused the record of the case and are satisfied that the judgment of which review has been sought does not suffer from any error apparent. In the garb of seeking review, the petitioner wants re-hearing of the case and we do not find any valid ground much less justification to entertain its prayer. The review petition is accordingly dismissed,” said the court for each petition. The court, in its February 2 judgment, had imposed a hefty fine of Rs 5 crore on Swan, Unitech Wireless and Tata Teleservices for offloading their shares to MNCs at high prices after getting the licences at throwaway prices. Fines of Rs 50 lakh each were imposed on Loop Telecom, S Tel, Allianz Infra (later merged with Swan Telecom) and Sistema Shyam for becoming beneficiaries of the dubious deal. The bench passed an identical order on the review petition titled Manmohan Singh Vs Subramnian Swamy. In this review petition, the PMO had sought review of the three-month period for grant of sanction for prosecution of government officials. It had also sought deletion of certain observations against PMO officials who had dealt with a representation of Swamy. The court had in its judgment blamed these officials for not briefing the PM properly on the representation. But, a major reprieve for the Centre came when the court agreed to hear the Union government’s review petition in open court on April 13. The government had questioned the court’s direction on auction of the cancelled telecom licences. The Centre had said that the manner of allocation of spectrum was an exclusive policy domain of the Executive and the separation of power under the Constitution barred the judiciary from foraying into it.