2G: SC dismisses review pleas, to hear govt plea

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed petitions seeking a review of the cancellation of 122 2G licences but agreed to hear the government’s review plea of its verdict, which found flaws with the Centre’s first-cum-first service (FCFS) policy. Bhadra Sinha reports.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed petitions seeking a review of the cancellation of 122 2G licences but agreed to hear the government’s review plea of its verdict, which found flaws with the Centre’s first-cum-first service (FCFS) policy and directed it to follow an auction-based policy.

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On February 2, the Supreme Court had slammed the FCFS policy while cancelling 122 licences allotted to telecom operators in 2010, which had caused a loss of R30,000 crore to the exchequer. The Centre has, however, not challenged the cancellation of the licences.

A special bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice KS Radhakrishnan said the review petition would be listed for an open court hearing on April 13 at 3.45 pm. However, the government's petition seeking a review of the SC’s verdict on sanction for prosecution and expunging of remarks against the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) officials was dismissed.

On Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy’s petition, the court — on January 31 — fixed a four-month period to decide the issue of sanction for prosecution of corrupt public servants, and said that the attorney-general should take a month to give his opinion.

The petitions that sought a review of the cancellation of 2G licences were from Tata Teleservices, S Tel, Videocon Telecom, Sistema Shyam, Unitech Wireless Pvt Ltd, Etisalat DB Telecommunication Pvt Ltd and Idea Cellular.