The Supreme Court will hear next week Iridium India Telecom Ltd?s plea alleging that US telecom giant Motorola Inc had siphoned public money of over Rs 500 crore in the guise of setting up global satellite communication project ?Iridium system? in 1987.

A bench headed by B Sudershan Reddy on Tuesday decided to hear the matter next week. A Motorola spokesperson refused comment saying it was the company?s policy not to comment on pending litigations.

The satellite telecommunications company has challenged the Bombay HC’s judgment of August 2003 that quashed its criminal complaint filed against Motorola Inc and its six top foreign officials for cheating public.

According to the petition, Motorola, which had conceived the commercial wireless satellite communication system in 1987, had raised billion of dollars through equity and debt offerings to the public through its 100% subsidiary Iridium Inc.

Even Iridium India, a consortium of nine FIs including IDBI, SBI, ICICI, HDFC, LIC, UTI GIC and its subsidiaries, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services and Export Import Bank of India, had paid $70 million (approximately Rs 350 crore) to Motorola for setting up a gateway at Pune.

These FIs, which have written off a large sum of money because of their Iridium misadventure, together had invested $70 million for a 5% stake in Iridium Inc and a further Rs 126.09 crore in the Iridium gateway at Pune, India?s largest foreign investment. Even Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd had invested Rs 50 crore in the gateway.

Iridium system envisaged a constellation of 66 artificial satellites girdling the globe to provide seamless communication anywhere on earth through a single telephone number. However, the project failed.

After Iridium proved to be a commercial disaster, Iridium Inc as a protective measure filed for bankruptcy protection from its creditors under the US Bankruptcy Code in 1999 and the entire Iridium system was sold in bankruptcy at $25 million in 2001, which was less than one thousandth of the price ($6.5 billion) which Motorola was paid to put up the system, according to the petition.

To attract investment and support, Motorola fraudulently represented Iridium as the world’s first commercial communication system and was projected as being financially viable venture, it added.

According to the Indian firm, Iridium Inc went bankrupt and the Indian institutions, like many of Iridium’s promoters around the world, accused Motorola of fraud and inducement to invest through false claims and suppression of material facts.