The breather for new 2G players was shortlived as the Supreme Court has rescheduled the next hearing on the issue of licence cancellation on February 11.
The apex court had earlier postponed the hearing till March 11, but incumbent GSM operators, including Vodafone, filed a plea for early hearing.
The case is important for both new 2G players and incumbent operators on different counts. New players such as Sistema Shyam and Telenor were hoping to get more time before their licences get cancelled so that can figure out their next course of action.
Both the players would have liked to hold onto the licences till the next round of spectrum auction scheduled to start from March 11.
Incumbent players
On the other hand, incumbent players such as Vodafone want these licences, issued in 2008, to be cancelled so that the spectrum vacated can be allocated to them. Vodafone had won spectrum in 14 circles during the auctions held in November but is yet to receive it.
In a communication to the DoT, Vodafone had said that despite the payments made, spectrum has not been allocated as the airwaves were still being used by players whose licences were cancelled by the Supreme Court based on the February 2012 order.
However, as the court has repeatedly extended the deadline for cancelling licences, the spectrum is still with the players who were allocated the same after January 10, 2008. For instance, operators such as IDEA, Videocon and Uninor are on the same frequency band in the Assam, Haryana, J&K and Odisha circles, awarded to Vodafone in the November 2012 auction.
Earlier plan
The impasse has been caused because the DoT had asked the court to extend the deadline for cancelling 2G licences. According to the earlier plan, the auction was to end by December and the earlier allocation cancelled by January. The Centre had sought extension of the time limit for the licensees whose permits stood quashed by the February 2, 2012 judgment.
A Bench of Justices G. S. Singhvi and K. S. Radhakrishnan, while allowing the extension in January, asked the Centre to spell out the price to be charged for continuing with their service after cancellation of the licences last year.