The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday posted the Centre?s petition challenging the Delhi High Court?s decision that criticised it for ?arbitrarily? advancing the cut-off date for release of 2G spectrum to new telecom players for final hearing on March 9.
The high court had said there was no ??rational?? in the decision of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to advance the deadline from October 1, 2007 to September 25, 2007 and after receiving applications the department cannot change the criteria.
However, Chennai-based S Tel had slammed the Centre for adopting discriminatory attitude by not allotting 2G spectrum for 16 circles to it as it was eligible for the same.
S Tel said that it was not challenging the fixation of the cut off date or any government policy but was seeking grant of letters of intent (LoIs) within ??the four corners of the policy declared by the government??.
Stating that it was not aggrieved by fixing of the cut-off date of October 1, 2007 for accepting licence applications for grant of Unified Access Service Licence, S Tel said that it had submitted application on September 29, 2007 in respect of the remaining 16 circles for which just 76 applications were made between September 25 to October 10.
The company pointed out that only 122 out of the 232 applications received till September 25, 2007 have been granted LoIs and the government is yet not considering the company’s application for reasons best known to it.
