According to the Ministry of Communications and IT, the licences held by Reliance Communications (RCOM) and Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) for offering GSM services are valid and need not be scrapped.
The ministry?s decision has come over a request made by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to examine whether the licences held by the two players is legal or not. Several industry bodies such as the Cellular Operators Association of India alleged that RCOM and TTSL held invalid licences and as part of the Supreme Court ruling in the 2G case, their licences should be cancelled.
The Ministry of Communications and IT approached senior advocate P.P. Rao for an opinion on the matter. According to the legal opinion received by the government, the Supreme Court?s order to cancel all licences issued on or after January 10, 2008 covered only players who applied for new licences whereas, in the case of TTSL, the operator had made a request to offer GSM-based services, in addition to its existing CDMA operations. Further, in TTSL?s case the operator had won licences prior to 2008 but had not received spectrum from the DoT.
According to Rao, following the Supreme Court?s order, DoT created a distinction between the 122 licences cancelled by the court and the licence issued to TTSL for offering GSM service. With an aim to clarify its stand, DoT issued two press releases on January 10, 2008 – one giving permission to CDMA players to use GSM spectrum (dual technology); and the second providing information on the procedure to be followed by the operators for applying for new licences.
