SC refuses to grant stay on proposed auction of spectrum of

The Supreme Court today refused to grant a stay on proposed auction of spectrum allocated to Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd.
A bench headed by Justice A R Dave, however, kept pending the two companies' pleas seeking renewal of their licences for 900 MHz spectrum, which is scheduled to expire after 20 years in December, 2015.
The companies had sought that the spectrum allocated to them should not be put up for auctions.
Their counsel submitted that the companies were ready to give a price fixed by the government for the spectrum or an auction-determined price but it should not be taken away from them.

The case will now be heard along with earlier pleas of the two companies, relating to the renewal of their 20-year licences.
Vodafone and Bharti Airtel had challenged the rejection of extension of its licences in six and five circles, respectively.

Vodafone said its licences in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh East, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Rajasthan are due to expire in December 2015 and the government had rejected the company's application to extend the same for another 10 years.
The company argued that the original licence term contained a clause which had provisions of extending the 20-year period by another 10 years.

Bharti Airtel's licences, which are due for expiry in December 2015, are in Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, the North East and Rajasthan circles.
The government plans to auction spectrum in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands, for which it would announce separate guidelines.
In the 900 MHz band, the department of telecom said 184 MHz of spectrum was available for auction and 104 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band.