Himanshu Kapania, Chief Executive Officer, Idea Cellular has written to Pranab Mukherjee, Minister of Finance saying that the GSM spectrum allocated to Tata Teleservices should be taken back.
Kapania, in his letter has stated that as per the Supreme Court order, the government should cancel 141 licences and not 122 licences as all licences issued on or after January 10, 2008 and subsequent allocation of spectrum to the licencees are illlegal and thus should be cancelled.
According to Kapania, while Tata Teleservices got licences to operate GSM services before 2008, it got the GSM spectrum only after 2008. Therefore, as per the Supreme Court order it should forfeit its licences.
Tata Teleservices? on its part has told the Finance Minister that claims made by other telecom firms are misleading, totally uncalled for, false and devoid of any merit. TTSL has noted that in its July 2010 judgment, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal has upheld the grant of GSM spectrum to the company, and that TTSL cannot be compared to new licensees because the company is an existing licencee.
