Hughes Plea For Sc Settlement Rejected

Though Ispat pressed for an urgent hearing at the apex court, the division bench presided over by Chief Justice A M Ahmadi ordered that the case will be heard by a division bench of the high court.

The dispute is over issuing basic telecom licenses in Maharashtra. Earlier, Ispat, which made the highest bid, gained the contract for the Maharashtra region.

But, on a plea against the licence issue by Tata Teleservices, the high court restrained the central government from issuing the licence to anyone.

Hughes Ispat then moved the Supreme Court against the interim order in January and the bench stayed the high court order.

 

The company has moved the court again today for an early hearing.

Its counsel K K Venugopal pointed out that the high court hearing will take at least one-and-a-half years because of the current proceedings inititated on Enron.

The cost of the project has already mounted up and the delay in court proceeding may disrupt the project also, he said.

Tata Teleservices counsel Arun Jaitley argued that it had given the best bid in the beginning.

But the then minister changed the criteria for selection and gave the contract to Ispat.

The minister's move was against the evaluation committee's decision, the counsel said.

The Supreme Court in its judgment delivered in January declined to go into the government policy on basic telecom services.

It said that judicial review was allowed only if there was arbitrariness or malafides in the award of contract.

Since it had settled the legal position in the main judgment, the high court can now proceed to decide the dispute between the two companies, according to the principles it had laid down, says the Supreme Court judgment.