PTI, New Delhi
Published by: Dev Kashyap
Updated Thu, 03 Mar 2022 11:51 PM IST
Summary
The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking refund of Rs 1,454 crore paid by ‘Loop Telecom’ for 2G licenses and Rs 1,000 crore for damages caused to its reputation after the cancellation of the licence. The court said the acquittal of the promoters in the criminal case does not take away from its finding that the process of granting licenses was arbitrary and constitutionally weak.
Supreme Court
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The Supreme Court on Thursday termed ‘Loop Telecom’ as a “consortium of frauds” and a “beneficiary” of the UPA era under the policy of “first-come-first-serve”. The court said that this policy was formulated by a group of private bidders to help themselves by losing government funds.
Supreme Court dismisses plea for ‘loop telecom’
The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking refund of Rs 1,454 crore paid by ‘Loop Telecom’ for 2G licenses and Rs 1,000 crore for damages caused to its reputation after the cancellation of the licence. The court said the acquittal of the promoters in the criminal case does not take away from its finding that the process of granting licenses was arbitrary and constitutionally weak.
Dismissing the plea, a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Vikram Nath observed that the acquittal of the promoters of the company in the criminal case does not quash the findings of the apex court while canceling the 2G spectrum clearance in 2012.
The bench, in its 71-page detailed judgment, observed that the need for an open and transparent bidding process for allocation of natural resources was replaced by a process that was designed to confer an unlawful advantage over a group of selected bidders. , which benefited Loop Telecom.
The Supreme Court had passed the order canceling the approval of 2G spectrum during the hearing of a bunch of petitions. One of these petitions was filed by the NGO ‘Center of Public Interest Litigation’ (CPIL). It said the company tried to quash these findings by relying on the acquittal by a special CBI judge.
Reading out the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said, “The acquittal of the promoters of the petitioner from the criminal charges does not take away from the findings which were included in the final judgment of the Court in the CPIL case and therefore the petitioner as the beneficiary of the fraud, refunded the entry fee.” Cannot take the help of the court to take it.
The judgment said that the ‘loop’ company was the beneficiary of a ‘first-come-first-served’ policy on 2G spectrum licensing and that the policy was formulated by “a group of private bidders to help fund the loss of government funds”. Was.”
“The claim of the petitioner that in the judgment of the Court in the case of CPIL had absolved him of any wrongdoing,” the judgment said. The process of granting UAS (Unified Access Service) licenses for grant of 2G licenses by the court was found to be arbitrary and constitutionally weak.
The judgment said that the petitioner company, relying on the acquittal judgment by the Special Judge of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), tried to treat the findings of the apex court as unnecessary. It said the proceedings initiated before the Telecom Disputes Resolution and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) for refund of entry fee are “clearly contrary to the order of this Court in the matter of CPI”.
The bench said, “For the aforesaid reasons, we have come to the conclusion that there is no merit in this petition, and therefore it is dismissed.” Loop Telecom Limited, in its petition, sought a direction to the DoT. It was requested to refund Rs 1,454.94 crore paid as license fee for ‘Unified Access License’ in 21 service areas.
These 21 licenses were among the 122 licenses which were canceled by the court in 2012 during the hearing of a bunch of petitions. Special CBI Judge OP Saini had on December 21, 2017 acquitted all the accused, including former Telecom Minister A Raja and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Kanimozhi, in the 2G spectrum allocation scam cases. Meanwhile, Loop Telecom promoters IP Khaitan and Kiran Khaitan were also acquitted.