The Supreme Court’s registry refused to receive the Centre’s application seeking clarification of its 2012 judgement in the 2G scam case in which the court had directed that spectrum allocation to be done through auctions, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.
The alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam is said to have originated in 2008, when the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology sold 122 2G licences on a first-come-first-served basis.
The Supreme Court judgement in 2012 had mandated that public resources such as telecommunications spectrum be allocated through an auction. The verdict had also cancelled the licences that had been allocated to several companies by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the time.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court registry returned the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s plea and said in a note that it was an attempt to seek a review of the judgement in the guise of asking for a clarification, the newspaper reported. It also described the application as “misconceived”.
The court registry said that the Centre in May 2012 had withdrawn a review petition against the judgement and the latest application is trying to get the matter heard after a long delay, reported The Indian Express.
In its application, the Centre had said that spectrum was assigned not only for commercial telecom services but also for sovereign and public interest functions like security, safety and disaster preparedness, reported The Hindu.
“There are also sui generis categories of usage owing to the characteristics of the spectrum, or the nature of use, or international practices, etc, in respect of which auctions are not technically or economically preferred or optimal [example: in the case of captive, backhaul or one time/sporadic use],” the application said.
However, the registrar declined the plea invoking Order 15, Rule 5 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, reported The Hindu. Under this rule, the registrar can decline to receive a plea if it discloses no reasonable cause or is frivolous or contains scandalous matter.
On April 22, the Centre had sought a modification of the judgement so that it can allocate spectrum through an administrative process if “pursuit of governmental functions, or public interest so requires, or auction may not be preferred due to technical or economic reasons”.
In an administrative process of allocating the spectrum, the government decides the method for selecting the companies.
In its 2012 verdict, the Supreme Court had ruled that the first-come-first-served basis would always have subjectivity in selection and could be misused. Public auctions, on the other hand, are a comparatively more transparent process to assign national assets or public property.
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