The supreme court on Monday sought reasons from parties involved on why the 2G licenses should not be revoked.

Hearing a petition demanding the revoking of the licenses, filed by former law minister and Janata party president Subramaniam Swamy, the apex court issued notices to the department of telecom (DoT), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and 11 telecom companies, namely, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone-Essar, Idea Cellular, Etisalat, Uninor, Loop Telecom, Videocon, S-Tel, Allianz Infra, , Sistema Shyam Teleservices and Dishnet wireless asking them all why the licenses issued should not be cancelled. The reply has to be filed by February 1 when the court will hear the matter next.

The SC has taken cognizance on public interest litigations (PILs) filed by Swamy and Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) that allege such allotments of the licenses were made arbitrarily and discriminatorily, ergo, be cancelled and auctions be held afresh. This, Swamy’s PIL suggested, should be done on similar lines as in the “petrol pump allotment case” in 1996 where the SC had ordered cancellations of allotment to work out a fair re-allotment.

The two PILs have alleged that several licensees have failed to meet the terms of their contract or "rollout obligations" and have not launched the services required of them. It also alleged advancing of the cut-off date for spectrum allocation application was arbitrary. The government has maintained that spectrum being a scarce resource the cut-off date had been advanced as it was not possible to allocate it in respect of every applicant. However, it had not come up with any clear cut classification and justifiable reasons on the same. This, the petitioner alleged, violated article 14 of the constitution which only permits a reasonable classification, having a rational nexus to the objective sought to be achieved and hence, all such applicants who applied even after the advance cut –off date should have been entitled for the licenses.

The division bench of Justices G.S Singhvi and Ashok Kumar Ganguly slammed the TRAI for failing to act timely and observed, “Why hasn't TRAI taken any action. It is the highest regulatory body. What were they doing?

The same bench of the court had earlier decided to monitor the CBI investigation into the 2G spectrum license issue on a PIL by the two petitioners.