Telecom minister Kapil Sibal on Monday said the government is committed to conducting spectrum auction as per timeline suggested by the supreme court. "We placed our difficulties before the court and the court had been kind enough to agree with that. Not only we are hopeful, but we are committed that the auction will take place within the timeline suggested by us to court," Sibal told reporters in New Delhi.

The supreme court on Monday directed the government to complete fresh auction of cancelled 122 2G spectrum licences by January 11, 2013 and warned that failure to meet the deadline would invite "contempt" action against erring officials with "exemplary" cost. A bench of justices comprising of G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan, which extended the August 31, 2012 deadline for completing the auction process, made it clear that no court in the country will entertain any plea on this issue of 2G spectrum. It said existing licencees of the 2G spectrum, who had to shut down the operation by September 7, are "entitled to operate upto January 18 next year." It also said that the bidding process, which will commence on November 12, should be completed within 60 days.

Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar said that the spectrum auction will be completed within the deadline. "We will now move ahead with the committed schedule. IM has been issued today which carries details (of auction process)," he said. According to the information memorandum issued by the DoT, notices to invite application will be issued on September 28 for two different airwaves band used for mobile telephony and companies interested in auction will have to submit their applications by October 19.

The DoT will first auction airwaves used for wireless telecom services in 1,800 Mhz band that are at present used for 2G GSM mobile telephone services. It will start auction process of 800 Mhz band spectrum, currently used for CDMA-based mobile services, two days after completion of bidding for 1,800 Mhz band.