Cancellation of 2G licenses
In February this year the Supreme Court declared allotment of 2G spectrum as "unconstitutional and arbitrary," and quashed all the 122 licenses issued on or after January 10, 2008 during tenure of A. Raja the main official accused in the 2G scam case.
Telecom companies that were affected by the cancellations of licenses were Uninor, MTS India Videocon Telecommunications Limited, Etisalat-DB, Idea Cellular, S Tel and Tata Teleservices.
The 2G spectrum scam involved politicians and government officials who illegally undercharged mobile companies for frequency allocation licenses.
The deficit between the money collected and the money which the law mandated to be collected is estimated to be 176,645 crore as valued by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India based on 3G and BWA spectrum auction prices in 2010.
In August this year, the Government of India, according to the directions of the Supreme Court, revised the spectrum price to 14,000 crore. However, the 2G mobile phone spectrum auction in November ended in a damp squib with half of the airwaves on offer remaining unsold and government getting just about one-third of the targeted revenue. The government was targeting Rs 28,000 crore from the sale of 2G spectrum in the GSM band.
