The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Government to go ahead with the auctioning of 2G spectrum with a rider that the successful bidder cannot be allotted spectrum till the challenge to the auction process gets finally decided.
Telecom service providers Bharti, Idea, Vodafone, Reliance and Sistema Shyam had challenged the notice announcing auction dated January 9 before various High Courts. The bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel transferred all petitions to itself on a transfer petition by Centre.
Posting all petitions to March 26, the bench allowed the March 4 auctions for 17 circles to go on as per schedule. However, the bench held that the successful bidder cannot claim "equity" in allotment of auction despite having paid the earnest amount. It clarified that the actual allotment will be subject to final outcome of the petitions pending in Court.
In order to ensure uniformity in decision, the apex bench further issued orders imposing a blanket ban on High Courts from entertaining any petition on challenge to the auction conditions or process. Such petition will be entertained only by the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi who appeared for Centre argued that the auction should not be stalled at this juncture. He agreed with the Court's suggestion to keep the auction results in abeyance awaiting the final outcome of proceedings in Court.
Senior advocates P Chidambaram and Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who represented the telecom giants Vodafone and Bharti alleged that the tender conditions for auction were tailor-made to suit a particular player in a circle. "There are conditions for bidding but there is no condition for use of spectrum," they argued.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar informed the Court that petitions were pending as on date before High Courts of Delhi, Allahabad, Karnataka, and Tripura. In all, the challenge is common to the validity of the clauses of tender documents. And for this reason, they required to be heard together, he added.