Giving its opinion on the Presidential reference arising out of 2G verdict, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia also said that common good is the touchstone for any policy and if it meets that then any means adopted is in accordance with the constitutional principles.
However, at the same time the court upheld the executive's prerogative to alienate natural resources as a policy matter and reserved the right to strike it down if there was any arbitrariness in the decision.
The apex court was giving its opinion on a Presidential reference seeking a clarity on the 2G verdict delivered by it in February 2 while striking down 122 telecom licences. The court had then held that auction should be the way for allocation of resources.
Top ministers in the government hailed the opinion as giving "constitutional clarity" on the auction issue and hoped that institutions like CAG would no longer use auction as benchmark for computing losses.
The government has been under all round attack after the CAG reports on 2G spectrum which had come out with a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crores and on coal block allocations that assumed a gain of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to private companies.
In its opinion, the bench observed that auction despite being a more "preferable method" of allotment of natural resources cannot be held to be a constitutional mandate. MORE