The Supreme Court of India on 24 April 2012 turned down the union government’s plea to grant 400 days to complete fresh distribution of 2G spectrum licences. The court, however, extended the deadline for the auction of licences from 2 June 2012 to 31 August 2012 considering that technically it was not possible to analyse the auction by June 1.
The court had on 2 February 2012 ruled that all the 122 licences allocatted to eight operators under the first come first serve policy in January 2008 during the A Raja regime be quashed early June and asked the government to reconduct the licence distribution through an open bidding process.
A Supreme Court bench of Justices G S Singvhi and K S Radhakrishnan also held that existing licences will remain operational till 7 September 2012.
Attorney General G E Vahanvati appeared in the court from the government's, he argued that the government needed 400 days to conduct fresh auctions and that the time given by the apex court was too short.
The bench maintained that its 2 February 2012 order cancelling 122 licences, allocated during the tenure of A Raja, would remain operational.
The apex court also warned private telecom companies against filing petitions questioning its 2 February 2012 verdict. The bench said it would impose exemplary costs if they continued to do so. It's a wastage of precious public time and money, the court held.
The bench was hearing the Union Government's application, seeking clarification of its direction in the 2 February 2012 judgement which had fixed 2 June 2012 as the deadline, when the 122 2G spectrum licenses, issued in 2008, would stand quashed.
The Union government had on 1 March 2012 moved the apex court stating it would impact over 69 million mobile users as the auction process for spectrum will take at least 400 days.
The Centre had informed the court that the auction process has commenced but it would take around 400 days for it to be completed.
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