HC adjourns final hearing on additional spectrum allocation

The Delhi High Court today adjourned its final hearing over the allocation of additional spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz by the government to existing telecom operators.

A division bench comprising Justice Madam B Lokur and Justice A K Pathak adjourned the matter and directed it to list on August 26.

During the proceeding, counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, Telecom Wathchdog, which has challenged the telecom department's spectrum allocation policy, requested the court to transfer the case to the sectoral tribunal, TDSAT.

 In its petition filed in November 2008, the NGO has contended that DoT had alloted spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz to the existing private telecom operators without following any policy since 2001.

"DoT without fixing any criteria for justification and without payment of additional licence fee provided the spectrum of 2x6.2 MHz to companies since 1999," the NGO alleged in its petition seeking a CBI enquiry into the matter.

 IT further submitted that DoT had been changing the spectrum allocation criteria in an adhoc manner and "in violation of the contract, almost all cellular companies have managed to get spectrum in much more quantity than what they were supposed to receive as per their original licence conditions".