New Delhi, January 11: The Supreme Court effectively closed in on A Raja on Monday when it decided to examine the 2008 spectrum allotment “irregularities” during his tenure as Telecom minister, by issuing notices to the Union government and 11 companies on an NGO’s petition seeking cancellation of the 2G licenses.
Given that Raja’s present successor Kapil Sibal sought to prove late last week that the 2G allotment loss to the nation was zero, a two-judge Bench also said it would ask the government to arrive at the exact figure, if any, but observed it cannot take cognisance of the official auditor’s estimate of Rs1.76 lakh-crore as it did “not form part of the record”.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) became the chief target of the day as Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly hurled a volley of questions over why the government-founded regulator of telecommunications business in the country failed to act when the telecom firms that secured licences in early 2008 failed to roll out the spectrum within a year of it (see graphic).
The companies that have been issued notice are Etisalat, S-Tel, Uninor, Loop Telecom, Videocon, Allianz Infra, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Dishnet Wireless and Vodafone-Essar.
The court further asked the chief petitioner, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), why it had not impleaded TRAI as a party, to which the NGO’s counsel, Prashant Bhushan, replied he would do the needful.
The Bench was also informed that the companies that had failed to roll out the services in stipulated time had been regularised after the payment of penalties. However, it took note of Bhushan’s submission that TRAI has taken cognisance of some of the firms’ failure to meet the roll-out obligation and a communication on this had been sent to the Department of Telecommunications. The bench sought a response from the DoT and the companies in three weeks.
The judges have posted the matter to February 1 for further hearing.
While one petition was filed jointly on December 14 by civil societies, including CPIL, another was filed by Janata Party’s Subramanian Swamy on January 4.
—Agencies