SC moved to suspend Reliance Jio permission for voice telephony

New Delhi, July 8 (IANS) The Supreme Court was moved on Tuesday for putting on hold the government’s permission to Reliance Jio Infocomm to provide voice telephony services using BWA (4G) spectrum as this has been commented upon by the CAG as a "rigged auction" in its draft report to the government.

"The government, despite the clear cut findings of the constitutional auditor and the glaring facts, has not thought it fit to keep its permission, granted to Reliance Jio Infocomm for granting voice telephony services, in abeyance," NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation said in its application.

The CPIL’s application said that while the government has maintained silence on the draft CAG report, Reliance Jio Infocomm was taking steps to start mobile services based on BWA spectrum and was making announcements about it.

It urged the court that during the pendency of its plea, it should put on hold the permission to Reliance Jio Infocomm for unlocking the voice telephony services using BWA (4G) spectrum.

The CAG has now worked out this to be an undue favour allegedly amounting to about Rs.22,842 crore to Reliance.

"A non-participant company RIL exploited the loophole left by the DoT in the eligibility criterion, lock-in period etc. for obtaining BWA spectrum, by acquiring a winning company IBSPL within hours of the closure of the auction process through collusion and sharing the confidential process," says the CAG draft report.

The department of telecom, the CAG draft report says, "failed to recognise the tell-tale signs of rigging of the auction right from the beginning of the auction submission of the EMD of Rs.252.50 crore by an ISP through the covert and overt assistance of a third party/private bank, bidding for Rs.12,847.77 crore (5,000 times of its net worth) for pan-India spectrum, to selling the company of the day of the completion of the auction".

"Neither the top management of the DoT nor the important committees ASC, IMC and CoS, could detect these tell-tale signs of collusion and sharing of confidential information by the biggest bidder, a tiny ISP," the CAG noted in its draft report.

On May 9, the court issued notice to the central government, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on CPIL’s plea seeking a court-monitored investigation into alleged back-door entry of RJI into voice telephony without auction.

The NGO contended that the company was allowed entry into voice telephony without following the auction route that was in violation of the apex court judgment in 2012 2G scam case.

The CPIL contended this was also in breach of apex court opinion in the Presidential reference whether auction was the only method of alienating the natural resources.