Supreme Court refuses 400 days for 2G telecom licence auction; extends deadline till Aug 31

New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) The Supreme Court today refused to grant 400 days to the Indian government to complete the process of fresh auctioning of the 2G spectrum licences but extended the deadline for it from June 2 to August 31, 2012. A bench of justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan also said the existing licences for 2G spectrum will continue to be operational till September 7, 2012. "In our view, it will be just and proper to partially accept the averments made in the application (by the Centre). "Accordingly, the time specified for conducting the auction and grant of licences is extended upto August 31, 2012," said the bench. The bench also said its February 2 order cancelling 122 licences, allocated during the tenure of A Raja as India's Telecom Minister, will remain operational. The bench made it clear that it was not going to accept the Centre's prayer for allowing it 400 days to complete the process of auctioning radio waves. The bench was hearing the Centre's application, seeking clarification of its direction in the February 2, 2012 judgement which had fixed June 2 as the deadline, when the 122 2G spectrum licences, issued in 2008, would stand quashed. The court had asked the Centre to complete the process of fresh actioning by June 2. Before passing the order the bench said, it was extending the time because technically it was not possible to analyse the auction by June 1. The Centre had on March 1 moved the apex court stating that it will impact over 69 million mobile users as the auction process for radiowaves will take at least 400 days. Meanwhile, welcoming the Supreme Court judgement allowing telecom firms whose licences it had earlier cancelled, to continue operations till September 7, telecom operators said it will provide a huge relief to customers. "The said order comes as a huge relief to our customers, employees, investors and all members of the telecom ecosystem who are both directly and indirectly associated with SSTL," a Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) spokesperson said. "We welcome the fact that the court has ensured speedy auctions and allowed our operations to continue till such time," Uninor said in a statement. "August 31 also means that government must move fast to review some of the recommendations that are otherwise certain to have a catastrophic impact on the industry and on tariffs for the common man. Issues on which there is already an industry consensus can be resolved very quickly," Uninor said. The GSM operators association COAI, however, said it is only a short term reprieve and not a solution to the problem. PTI