The Lok Satta Party is planning to approach the supreme court to get the corruption-tainted 2G spectrum licences cancelled and licences issued afresh on competitive bidding. This was stated in a press statement issued by the party on Thursday morning.

It plans to implead itself as a party in the case filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court or file fresh petition if necessary on the scam, said party president Jayaprakash Narayan in a media statement.

Narayan said that most of the debates in the media and political circles missed the forest by focusing on trees like the future of A Raja, the guilty minister, the alliance between the Congress and the DMK and the nature of the inquiry that should be instituted.

The statement said that allocation of precious and finite spectrum on a first come, first served basis without calling for competitive bids, arbitrary advancement of the cut-off date for considering applications,  fixing an abnormally low price for the spectrum disregarding the remarkable increase in telephone density in the country, failure to lay down eligibility criteria for applicants and sale of cornered spectrum by fly-by-night operators for many times the fee they paid the government had caused enormous loss running into tens of thousands of crores of rupees to the public exchequer.

Narayan said that the 2G licences granted by Raja be straightway annulled under Section 23 of the Indian Contracts Act. A contract as per the Act becomes void if it is tainted with corruption. The government could return the licence fee to the spectrum licenses after deducting fee for the period they used it. The government should then call for international competitive bidding after laying down transparent eligibility criteria in consultation with TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India).
 
To prevent recurrence of such scams in future, the government should enact a law under which any licence for or lease of natural resources  to corporates shall become void if there is evidence of corruption/fraud/collusion/loss to the state. The fear of losing licences/leases obtained with illegal money will deter corporates from indulging in corruption.