SCI rejects transfer plea of Department of Telecom on one time spectrum fee

The Supreme Court of India has rejected transfer plea of the Department of Telecom (DoT) with regards to the one time spectrum fee. However, a bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu dismissed as withdrawn the batch of government’s transfer pleas.

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“The telecom companies have filed petitions in different HCs “as a delaying tactic” and it is “nothing but an exercise of forum shopping in order to avoid the payment of one time spectrum charges,” DoT said in its petitions before SCI.

Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar argued that the question of law in all the petitions is “identical” and “if these petitions are not heard together, it will lead to a multiplicity of litigation and decision on the same issue across various forums and the various High Courts and the TDSAT could render contrary decisions.” However, the DoT had issued orders regarding charging of one-time spectrum charge on December 28, 2012 and March 15, 2013 to various operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, RCom, Aircel, BSNL, MTNL and Tata Teleservices.

Then Union government in 2012 decided operators should pay for holding spectrum above 6.2 MHz retrospectively, from July 2008 to January 1, 2013, based on market-determined price decided in the auction. The Department of Telecom (DoT) had issued a demand of Rs 5,201.24 crore for Bharti Airtel, Rs 3,599.40 crore for Vodafone, Rs 1,882 crore for Idea Cellular, Rs 1,351.51 crore for Aircel, Rs 305.11 crore for Reliance Communications and Rs 173.47 for Reliance Telecom.