The Supreme Court has decided to hear in open court the petition filed by the Centre seeking review of its verdict cancelling 122 licences for the 2G spectrum but dismissed all other petitions including that of seven telecom companies and former telecom minister A Raja.
The apex court, which decided to hear on April 13 the Centre's plea seeking review of the February 2 verdict holding as unconstitutional the policy of first-come-first-served, however, rejected its plea to have a re-look into its findings that sanction for prosecution of public servants can be sought even prior to filing of complaints.
A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan said Raja's apprehension that his case in the trial court would be prejudiced due to the verdict cancelling the 2G licences is 'not well founded'.
The companies whose review petitions were dismissed are Videocon Telecommunications Ltd, S Tel Ltd, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt Ltd, Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.
"We have carefully perused the review petition and the record of the case and are convinced that the judgment of which review has been sought does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its reconsideration," the bench said while giving separate orders on the review petitions filed by the seven telecom companies.
While rejecting the Centre's plea on the issue of sanction in which the Prime Minister's Office was pulled up, the bench said its verdict did not suffer from any error and under the garb of review petition rehearing and reconsideration of the issue decided cannot be allowed.
"We have carefully perused the averments contained in the review petition and the grounds on which the petitioner (Centre) has sought review of the judgement and are convinced that the judgement of which review has been sought does not suffer from any error apparent warranting its re-consideration.
"In the garb of review, the petitioner cannot seek re-hearing of the matter and re-consideration of the issues decided by the Court. The review petition is accordingly dismissed," the bench said.