SC stays HC proceedings on cellular licences

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 13. The Supreme Court today stayed the proceedings pending before the High Courts of Delhi and Madras relating to grant of cellular telephone licences.

A Bench comprising Mr. Justice V.N. Khare and Mr. Justice B.N. Agrawal granted the interim stay on a petition filed by the Centre seeking to transfer the writ petitions pending in the two High Courts for disposal together by the apex court. The Bench ordered issue of notice to the petitioners before the High Courts and also to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, returnable in four weeks.

In its transfer petition, the Centre submitted that the questions involved in the writ petitions pending before the High Courts were the same. The petitions before the High Courts challenged the bidding process for the issue of cellular licences on the ground that the use of spectrum was allowed to the would- be licencees without any fee or charge and it was squandering away scare resources.

The Centre submitted that matters such as grant of cellular licences impinged on the development of one of the core sectors of the economy. Considerable foreign investment was likely in this sector once the licences were granted. Any uncertainty in the process of grant of licences would be a setback to the entire process of development of this sector and it would cast a shadow on the efforts of the Government to induce private investment in core sectors.

It was, therefore, necessary that these matters were resolved expeditiously and hence the writ petitions in the two High Courts be transferred to the apex court and heard together for disposal, the transfer petition said.

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Section  : National
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