HC seeks response on Parsvnath telecom plea

The Delhi High Court today sought response from the central government on why it was not allowing real estate firm Parsvnath Developers to enter the telecom business.

Justice Gita Mittal issued notice to the government, and directed it to file its reply within three weeks.

The court also made it clear that the government's action with regard to issuance of licence will be subject to the outcome of the writ petition and the seniority of real estate developer would be not be affected if it proves that the centre's action was illegal.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Parsvnath Developers, which has challenged the Department of Telecom's January 10 order rejecting its application of unified access service licence on the ground that the company's main objective did not include telecom as its business.

Referring to the guidelines issued by DoT on December 14, 2005, senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the company, contended that "nowhere it was mentioned in the guidelines that the requirement of having telecommunication business in the main objects clause was a pre-requirement at the threshold stage of making an application."

Centre's counsel Sanjay Hegde submitted that the decision was based on the DoT's guidelines and at the time of the application the company's objective did not specify telecom as its business and it was included in the memorandum and articles of association of the company only after the application for the licence was filed.

The company had made 22 applications for grant of licence for all the telecom circles on August 24 last year.