SC scraps 122 2G spectrum licences granted under Raja's tenure
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Imposing
a fine of Rs five crore each on three telecom companies, which
offloaded their shares after getting the licenses, the court directed
regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to make fresh
recommendations on allocation of 2G licences.
Asking
the government to take steps on the recommendations of TRAI within a
month, a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly said the
allocation of spectrum will be done through the policy of auction within
four months.
The
order came on petitions filed by NGO CPIL and Janata Party President
Subramanian Swamy alleging scam in the allocation of spectrum licences
by Raja in January 2008, on which the CAG had assumed the presumptive
loss of upto Rs 1.76 lakhs.
The
122 licences were given by Raja for over Rs 9,000 crore, while 3G
auctions for a smaller number of licences had fetched the government a
sum of Rs 69,000 crores.
The
companies that are set to lose on account of the cancellation of the
licences are Uninor (joint venture between Unitech and Telenor of
Norway), Loop Telecom, Sistema Shyam (joint venture between Shyam and
Sistema of Russia), Etisalat DB (joint venture between Swan and Etisalat
of UAE), S Tel, Videocon, Tatas and Idea.
Among
the 122 licences issued by Raja in January 2008 on first-come
first-serve basis, Uninor was alloted 22 pan India licences, Loop 21,
Sistema-Shyam 21, Etisalat-DB 15, S Tel 6, Videocon 21, Idea 9 and Tatas
3.
Reacting
to the Supreme Court judgement Uninor, which has launched services in
most of the circles, expressed shock and said that the company has been
treated unfairly.
"We
have been unfairly treated as we simply followed the government process
we were asked to. We are shocked to see that Uninor is being penalised
for faults the court has found in the government process," the company
statement said.
Noting
that the order has not stopped the company operations for now Uninor
said "we expect the authorities to ensure that our 36 million customers,
17,500 workforce and 22,000 partners are not unjustly affected."
Other new operators said that they would examine the order before commenting on the future course of action. 
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