DoT asks SC to extend licences of Sistema, Telenor

In an attempt to bring some relief to foreign telecom operators whose Indian operations are in jeopardy following the cancellation of their licences by the Supreme Court last February, the Department of Telecommunications on Tuesday approached the apex court seeking that its 18 January deadline for shutting down these mobile networks be extended till the next round of airwaves auctions, scheduled for 11 March.

If the court agrees, this would particularly help MTS, majority owned by Russia's Sistema, and Norway's Telenor, which operates in a now-shaky partnership with Unitech as Uninor. All their licences have been cancelled as they were awarded in 2008 under tainted methodology.

Under the court's earlier directive, all mobile phone companies whose permits were quashed were ordered to shut down their networks by 18 January unless they had obtained airwaves and new licences in the first round of spectrum auctions conducted last November.

If the apex court approves an extension, Sistema's permits will be valid till March. Similarly, this will also allow Tata Teleservices, Telenor and Videocon to continue operations in areas where they failed to win airwaves in the November auctions.

However, DoT has specified in its appeal that these companies will be given 'temporary licences' and will have to pay for these from 19 January at the rate of the price discovered for such spectrum in the proposed auction or the reserve price, whichever is higher.

"Such an arrangement will avoid disruption of services to the subscribers on one hand and safeguard public revenue on the other and also give an opportunity to service providers to serve their subscribers uninterruptedly," the DoT affidavit said.

The Indian arm of Russia's Sistema, which has over 16 million subscribers, did not participate in the November auction, and the company has been emphatic that as a pure-play CDMA operator its legal case is different from the GSM carriers whose permits were quashed by the apex court.

The Supreme Court will hear the curative petition filed by the local unit of Russia's Sistema challenging the cancellation of its mobile permits on Thursday. The company had filed a curative petition in May last year after the Supreme Court cancelled its pan-India mobile permits, with the exception of the Rajasthan circle.