In a day of review petitions, the Union government, jailed former minister A Raja, and telcos Sistema Shyam and Uninor on Friday moved the Supreme Court separately against different aspects of the apex court judgement on 2G licence cancellations. Just a month ago, on February 2, the Supreme Court had cancelled all the 122 telecom licences issued during the Raja regime over the alleged 2G spectrum scam.
In its review petition, the government has not challenged the court order cancelling the 122 licences, but has asked the court to reconsider a part of its order that barred the Centre from allocating spectrum and other natural resources on a first-come first-served basis. The petition questioned the view that the state was duty-bound to conduct a public auction whenever it distributed natural resources and that they should always go to the highest bidder.
Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said, “Some questions have been raised on policy formulation, some specifics regarding policy statements that were there in the judgement and the role of the executive in policy-making.”
The petition said, “The essence of policy-making and governance is the weighing and balancing of different values and considerations, which is the role of the executive, and it is not permissible for the court to take this exercise upon itself and engage in policy-making, both for the reason that it is not its role to do so and it does not have the expertise to do so." It said the “court travelled beyond the established limits of judicial review and entered the exclusive domain of the executive when it held in the impugned judgment the policy was flawed on the ground that the court disagreed with the weight attached by the executive to the different factors underlying the decision to adopt the policy".
Among the telecom operators whose licences were cancelled, Uninor, a joint venture between Norway’s Telenor and Unitech Group, filed a petition, seeking a review of the judgment, the company said in a statement. It has asked for relief against the court’s order of cancellation of its licences. Uninor has pointed at severe adverse consequences for licence-holders and their stakeholders, such as a large subscriber base, foreign investors, lenders, suppliers and employees. Uninor, which wants to go with a new partner in India, has around 40 million subscribers.
While the government had yesterday filed a clarificatory petition seeking the apex court view on an indicative timeline of 400 days for conducting 2G spectrum auction, Uninor has asked the Supreme Court to ensure the auction process and the grant of new licences is conducted within the stipulated period of four months. In its February 2 order, the court had asked the government to conduct auctions within four months.
In a parallel development, Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), a JV between Russia’s Sistema and Shyam Group, also filed a petition, saying it was being unfairly penalised for acting in good faith and relying on the appropriateness of the procedures established by India’s telecommunication authorities.
SSTL CEO Vsevolod Rozanov said, “To continue our pan-Indian operations and to protect the interests of over 15 million customers and our investments, we have filed for a review of the judgement before the Supreme Court.” Sistema has asked the government to resolve the issue in six months. DMK MP and former Telecom Minister A Raja moved the Supreme Court on Friday, asking it to expunge remarks made against him in the recent judgment cancelling 122 licences. In his petition, he said he was not a party to the case and was not heard by the court before it condemned him. These are “fundamental legal grounds which go to the root of the matter of the validity of the judgment”, the petition said. The February 2 judgment blamed Raja for his actions and inactions without giving him an opportunity to defend him, according to the plea.