SC trashes telecos' plea for review of 2G order

Allows Centres petition on first-come-first-serve policy

The Supreme Court has dismissed a host of review petitions filed against its order cancelling 122 2G spectrum licences but allowed a plea of the Centre contending that the court cannot review the merits of a first-come-first-serve policy decision made by the executive.

A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan rejected 10 of the 11 petitions filed against the apex court orders passed on January 31 and February 2.

Telecom companies Videocon Telecommunications, S Tel, Systema Shyam Teleservices, Tata Teleservices, Unitech Wireless, Idea Cellular Ltd and Etisalat DB Telecom Ltd, which challenged the licence cancellation order could not get any relief.

In its brief orders passed separately, the bench, which went through those petitions in chamber on Tuesday, allowed the government’s review petition filed by Telecommunication department and decided to list it for April 13 for further hearing in the open court.

In the petition, the Department of Telecommunication had defended the first-come-first-served policy and submitted the court’s recommendation for auction in case of distribution of natural resources went against the principle of Constitution.

The apex court had in a significant order on February 2 cancelled 122 licences of 2G spectrum granted to 11 companies in 2008, noting the “flaw” in the government’s first-com-first-serve policy for use of natural resources.

Jailed former Telecom Minister A Raja, who also sought review of the order due to observations made against him in the order, could not impress upon the court which dismissed his plea not “well-founded”.

The bench also rejected the plea filed by centre challenging January 31 order of the apex court pulling up Prime Minister’s Office for delay in grant of sanction for prosecution of Raja.

“We have carefully perused the averments contained in the review petition and the grounds on which the petitioner (Centre) has sought review of the judgment and are convinced that the judgement of which review has been sought does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its re-consideration,” the court said.

“In the garb of review, the petitioner cannot seek re-hearing of the matter and re-consideration of the issues decided by the court,” the bench added.

Meanwhile, the bench on Wednesday commenced hearing the application filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation seeking investigation against Home Minister P Chidambaram for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum scam as then Finance Minister.