New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) registry has declined to list the Centre’s application seeking clarification of the top court’s 2012 2G judgment, ThePrint has learnt.
SC sources said that in the order passed on the administrative side Tuesday, the registry said the application could not be listed as it was in effect asking for a review of the verdict in the “guise of clarification”.
The registrar (judicial), who issued the administrative order, termed the application as misconceived, and noted that the Centre had itself withdrawn a review petition filed against the verdict on 10 May, 2012.
The administrative order means the Centre’s application would not be placed for an open-court hearing before the judges.
The top court in February 2012 had cancelled the 2G spectrum allocation, followed up with a directive to the CBI to probe what it dubbed as the “2G scam”.
In doing so, the top court set aside the first-come-first serve (FCFS) basis for the assignment of spectrum and held the state was duty bound to allot natural resources by giving wide publicity so that all eligible persons could participate in the process.
In its application filed in December 2023, the Centre sought clarification of the 12-year-old verdict to allow it to allocate spectrum through other legally-valid administrative procedures.
Refusing to list the Centre’s application for a hearing, the registrar observed that the plea, titled as a “miscellaneous application”, was filed after a gap of nearly 12 years. The order recorded that the application “does not disclose any reasonable cause for being entertained”. The officer has refused to receive it as per the “provisions of the Order XV Rule 5 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013”.
As per this provision of the Supreme Court Rules, a registrar may refuse to receive a petition on the ground that it “discloses no reasonable cause or is frivolous or contains scandalous matter, but the petitioner may within 15 days of the making of such order, appeal by way of motion, from such refusal to the court”.
The administrative order further said that the applicant, which is the Centre, is attempting to obtain a rehearing of the matter in open court after a long lapse of time. A similar prayer was made in the review petition filed by the applicant, it stated.
According to SC sources, the Centre can file an appeal against the registrar’s order.
A member of the government’s legal team, on the condition of anonymity, said that since the rules permitted an appeal, the Centre would be challenging the administrative order on the judicial side, as the registrar (judicial) could not declare a finding on the nature of the application.
“We wanted the application to be listed for an urgent hearing. Instead of deciding that, the registrar gave an opinion on the application, which cannot be done,” the counsel said.
The government’s application said that spectrum was not only required for commercial telecommunication services, but also for non-commercial use for the discharge of sovereign and public-interest functions such as security, safety, disaster preparedness etc.
If the assignment of spectrum was in pursuit of governmental functions or in public interest or if its auction was not preferred due to technical or economic reasons, then the government may consider allocating the same through processes that are in accordance with law, the application submitted.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: Govt’s hypocrisy knows no bounds: Cong slams Centre for seeking ‘modification’ in 2G case verdict
Given how the system functions, the Supreme Court decision that all natural resources or public assets should be disposed of by auction or transparent bidding procedures should remain undisturbed.