Delhi HC notice to govt on spectrum allocation

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the central government on a petition challenging its first come-first serve procedure adopted in spectrum allocation.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Muralidhar asked the government to file its response within three weeks and posted the matter to December 10, the next date of hearing, reports IANS.

The petition had challenged the government's policy of allocating 2G spectrum and alleged it had caused a loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer.

Arvind Gupta, the petitioner, alleged that the procedure followed by the government was non-transparent, and was intended for the benefit of some private players in the telecom industry.

Gupta also referred to an earlier judgement of the High Court delivered in 1993 by which the court had said that first come-first serve policy is unreasonable and unfair.

He questioned the government's intention of not following a competitive bidding procedure.

"The proximity of real estate developers to corridors of the department of telecom has enabled even real estate developers to overnight turn into telecom entrepreneurs. Indian real estate developers and infrastructure promoters have also become Indian telecom players," Gupta alleged in his petition.