NEW DELHI, March 3 (AFP) - India's government has challenged a court ruling scrapping 122 telecom licences awarded in a 2008 sale at the centre of a massive corruption scandal.
The government on Friday challenged the Supreme Court's decision in early February to cancel the second-generation (2G) mobile licences that have caused turmoil in the flagship telecom sector, saying that it violated the country's constitution.
“This judgment is contrary to the principle of separation of powers embodied in the constitution,” the Congress-led government said in its petition.
The government also said the court had “travelled beyond the limits of judicial review and entered the realm of policy making.”
The 2008 licensing sales are at the heart of one of India's biggest corruption scandals in which former telecom minister A. Raja is alleged to have underpriced the licences to favour some firms, costing the treasury up to $39 billion.
Graft has become a hot political issue in India due to high-profile scandals including the so-called “2G scam” and contracts awarded for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Among the firms affected by the cancellation of the 122 licences was Norwegian telecom giant Telenor which entered India's fiercely competitive mobile market along with a host of other foreign firms eyeing big returns.
The Norwegian firm paid $1.10 billion for a majority stake in the venture with Indian property developer Unitech, which bought a licence in the first-come, first-serve distribution process.
Unitech was among a number of Indian companies with no telecom experience that sold stakes in their new mobile operations to foreign investors, including Gulf-based Etisalat and Russia's Sistema JSFC, for hefty sums.
Raja and a number of company executives and government officials have been charged in the graft scandal which has cast a shadow over Premier Manmohan Singh's Congress government. |
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