The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to take a decision on the dispute between the government and private telecom operators on bidding of spectrum for the north-east circle.
The Bench was hearing an appeal by the Centre seeking a stay on the Tripura High Court’s interim order allowing telecom firms Bharti Hexacom Ltd and Reliance Telecom Ltd to submit two bids for a total of 8.8 MHz spectrum in the circle.
“We make it clear that the order of the High Court would not be relied upon by any of the parties,” Justice Dipak Misra observed for a Bench also comprising Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel.
The matter has been posted for hearing on February 25.
Senior advocates P. Chidambaram and L. Nageshwar Rao, appearing for Reliance Telecom and Bharti, respectively, argued that the government's decision to fix the minimum bandwith at 5 MHz out of a total 8.8 MHz auctioned for the north-east region was lop-sided.
Mr. Chidambaram said this would leave the balance 3.8 MHz go back to the government and remain wasted when the entire north-east region was suffering from connectivity issues. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi countered that the two private companies had been resorting to all tactics to retain their licences expiring the end of this year after 20 years.
