The Supreme Court Thursday cancelled all 122 telecom licenses allotted under the 2G spectrum allocation during former telecom minister A Raja's regime.
Cancelling the licenses, the apex court said that the 122 licenses approved under the 2G allocation on or before Jan 10, 2008 were granted in arbitrary and unconstitutional manner.
Further, it also said that 85 out of 122 licenses were outside the eligibility criteria for allocation and all the licenses during A Raja's tenure would be cancelled in four months.
The court asked the Indian telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), to go in for a fresh issue of licenses during this period.
The court has also fined six telecom firms. Three of them, Etisalat, Uninor and TATA, have been penalized Rs 5 crore each. Loop and Essar have been fined Rs 50 lakh each.
The licenses cancelled include Videocon (21), Uninor (22), Idea (9), Loop (21), S-Tel (6), of Sistema (21), Tata (3), Swan (13) and Allianz (2).
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court refused to give direction to the CBI on pleas filed by Janata Party president Subramanium Swamy and lawyer -activist Prashant Bhushan to investigate the role of Home Minister P Chidambaram in the alleged irregularity in the 2G spectrum allocation.
The court said that special judge O P Sani, who is handling the case, will take a decision on the matter.
In another judgment, the court refused to sanction a special investigation team to check the CBI's investigation into the 2G scam. It said the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) would monitor the investigation. The court asked the CBI to submit its status reports to the CVC in sealed envelopes.
