Excess spectrum: SC raps government for delay in reply

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the government for delaying its reply in a case involving alleged allocation of “scarce” airwaves in excess of the contracted amount to GSM operators, but “reluctantly” granted it two more weeks to answer.

“Admittedly it is a scare public resource, distribution should be in keeping with constitutional ethos,” a bench, headed by Justice GS Singhvi said, adding that there cannot be any “justification” of a delay of over a year in replying in “such an important matter”.

AUSPI, the industry lobby group representing telecom operators operating on the CDMA platform had filed a petition in the apex court, alleging that rival GSM operators were allotted airwaves in excess of the contracted 6.2 MHz of spectrum — in come cases up to 10 MHz — without having to pay any additional amounts for such usage, causing a loss of Rs 9,255 crore to the exchequer. A similar petition filed by Yakesh Anand also challenged it.

Arguing on behalf of AUSPI, Mukul Rohatgi claimed that the price of additional spectrum allotted in excess of the contracted amounts ran into thousands of crores. He claimed that excess spectrum was allocated without any fee and these operators had enjoyed free spectrum for 14-15 years. But they had been asked to make payments only from July 2008, for five to six years. “This needs explanation,” the bench observed.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for GSM operators, argued, saying that parties like Bharti Airtel had paid Rs 6,300 crore for this use of additional spectrum. The auction price only came up in 2008, he said. The court gave two weeks to the government to reply but imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh each on the GSM operators and the central government.