New Delhi, January 10
The Supreme Court today refused to take notice of Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s rejection of the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that the government had lost Rs 1.76 crore in the allocation of 2G Spectrum and posed a question as to why the court can’t cancel the licences of 11 companies that failed to roll out services within a year of getting the licence.

“Why the licences cannot be cancelled by the court,” a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly asked counsel Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for a PIL petitioner who has sought a directive to the government to cancel the licences of the 11 companies that got 122 licences on “first-come, first-served” basis for 22 telecom circles in January, 2008, but had not fulfilled the roll-out obligation. “We are not suggesting anything. We are just asking,” Justice Singhvi hastened to add, lest the media should misinterpret the remark and state that the apex court intends to cancel the licences.

After Bhushan pointed out that Sibal had just two days ago denied the loss of Rs 1.76 crore as estimated by the CAG, the Bench said it would “not go by media reports. It has some advantages, but a lot of disadvantages. So it is proper to go by the affidavits” filed by the government. “We will ask the government” about the loss, it added.

The Bench issued notice to the Centre, the 11 defaulting companies and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the fresh PIL filed by the Centre for PIL (CPIL). The government and others have been asked to respond within four weeks.

The Bench further clarified it had taken note of CAG’s methodology for arriving at the notional loss, the Delhi High Court’s finding that the Spectrum allocation was “arbitrary” and the recommendation of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to the CBI for registration of an FIR in the case after finding that “there is something seriously wrong”.

Sibal has questioned the CAG’s findings despite the fact that the SC was monitoring the CBI probe into the presumptive loss arising from the 2G allocation in 2008 at price of 2001 instead of going for auction and that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament was also verifying the CAG report. The SC began monitoring the CBI probe following an earlier PIL filed by the CPIL.

During the arguments, the Bench also questioned TRAI’s wisdom in remaining silent for a long time before asking the Telecom Ministry to cancel the licences of the defaulting companies. The PIL has sought the court’s directive to the government for acting on the TRAI recommendations.

The 11 defaulting companies are: Etisalat, Uninor, Loop Telecom, Videocon, S-Tel, Allianz Infra, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Sistema Syam Teleservices, Dishnet Wireless and Vodafone-Essar.