‘Centre’s action on 2G issue subject to outcome of petition’

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Tuesday said whatever steps the central government takes to regularise 2G spectrum licences of firms which failed to fulfil their rollout obligations would be subject to the final outcome of the petition that has challenged the allocation in 2008 at 2001 prices.

The apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly said: “We do not know if they (central government) have done anything. But anything they would do would be subject to the final outcome of the petition.”

The court said this when senior counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Centre for Public Interest Litigation, sought the court’s interim order to restrain the Union of India from regularising any telecom licence after charging some penalty or compounding any licence violation.

The senior counsel asked the court to declare that in future no contract or right over any natural resource like energy, mines, minerals, land or spectrum would be awarded or granted by the government or state without a transparent competitive public auction.

When Bhushan pointed out that the communications ministry would complete the process of imposing the penalties for regularising the 2G spectrum licences, the court said there would be no compounding for us.

The court’s obsrrvation came during the hearing of a petition that sought cancellation of licences to all telecom companies which were granted 2G spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices.

Attorney General G. Vahanvati earlier told the court that most of them (telecom operators) have failed in their rollout obligations and they have been served with notice of cancellation.

Appearing for a group of telecom companies, senior counsel Harish Salve said the petition for cancellation of their licences was based on the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), which was full of errors and not before them.

There are a host of errors in the report, Salve said.

Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for some telecom companies which were allocated 2G spectrum licences in 2001, said that we all are the companies who were not there in 2008. We were there well before that and could not be treated at par with those which came into the picture in 2008.

While Salve wanted the central government to file its reply before telecom operators, Vahanvati sought more time to file the reply as the mandatory 60 days notice period for the cancellation of licences will come to an end Feb 12.

When petitioner and Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy wanted a copy of the report of Justice Shivraj Patil on 2G spectrum scam and the report of the union home ministry, the court said he could procure these if he was entitled to and after following the procedure.

Swamy claimed that the ministry’s report said that two of the telecom operators were connected with Pakistan and China and there was a threat to national security.

The court said that all the respondents, including the central government and the telecom operators, would file their replies within three weeks. The case will come up for hearing March 1.