Telecom Lead India: The India government has decided to
withdraw from the Supreme Court its plea for review of the 2G judgment, which
had held that natural resources should be allotted to private companies only
through auction and not on the basis of first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy.
A letter, circulated in this regard to the parties linked to
the matter, said an application would be moved on May 10 for withdrawing the
petition seeking review of the February 2 judgment, which held the FCFS policy
unconstitutional, while cancelling the 122 2G licences, allotted during the
tenure of former telecom minister A Raja.
The Centre’s letter circulated to various parties said,
“In view of the fact that only limited notice has been issued, the
petitioners do not want to press the review petition and will be praying for
withdrawal of the review petition.”
The apex court on April 13 had admitted the government’s
plea seeking review of its 2G ruling on a limited aspect that natural resources
should be allotted to private companies only through auction but had refused to
hear the affected telecom firms, whose petitions for reconsideration of the
verdict cancelling their licences were dismissed.
A bench of justices GS Singhvi and KS Radhakrishnan had
issued notices to the NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, seeking their responses on the
government’s plea seeking review of the February 2 judgment by which the
first-come-first-served policy was held as flawed.
In the review petition, the Center had said it did not want
to question the order on the cancellation of licenses, according to agency
reports.
After filing the review petition, the Government on April 12
had moved the Supreme Court with a Presidential Reference for its opinion on
issues arising out of its 2G spectrum judgement including whether auctioning of
natural resources across all sectors is mandatory and the verdict be given
retrospective effect for radio waves granted since 1994.
