It may be just coincidence, but the measured reaction to the February 2 verdict of the Supreme Court—when it scrapped the 122 telecom licences issued by ex-Union minister A. Raja in January 2008—has a lot to do with another landmark judgement delivered just 12 days before. The SC having established ‘impartiality’ in the Vodafone tax case, telecom players perhaps found it easier to digest the enormous implications of its verdict in the 2G case.
It’s easy to say what happened was expected. That fear was palpable among the telecom players embroiled in this case, given they couldn’t second-guess the SC’s intrepretation of the law. But when the axe did fall, it wasn’t pretty. The SC stated the 122 licences were granted in an arbitrary and unconstitutional manner. Of this, 85 were outside the eligibility criteria for allocation. It has also fined the Unitech-Telenor JV, Swan Telecom and Tata Telecom Rs 5 crore each for being beneficiaries of A. Raja’s arbitrary policies. Loop and Essar have been fined Rs 50 lakh. Most telecom players—barring Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and RCom—have been affected.