CBI defends govt decision not cancel 2G LOIs

A day after facing searching questions from Supreme Court, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today defended the government's decision not to cancel Letters of Intent (LoIs) in the 2G spectrum allocation issued to the telecom companies now under the scanner.

In an additional note submitted in the apex court today, the CBI justified its decision on the ground that any cancellation would lead to spate of litigations.

The agency cited 2 judgements of the apex court to claim that once rights were created by issuing LOIs, it is not open to cancellation.

"This being so the statement that no rights were created for the allottee on Jan 10, 2008 is legally unsound it may not be correct to state that after receiving the amount 1600 crores for each licence and fulfilling the other conditions in the LOI, the licences would still be open to cancellation. In such an event the allottee would have taken recourse to the courts of law," the agency said.

The CBI's response comes against the backdrop of yesterday's questions posed by the bench as to why the government did not cancel the LOIs for three years even after then Telecom Minister Raja went ahead with the "first cum first served" policy ignoring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's suggestions for auctioning the scarce resource.

This was also the submission of the CPIL that there was ample time between the issuance of LOI and actual grant of licences.