New Delhi, March 2
The government on Friday told members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G scam that the Supreme Court — by its latest order, cancelling the 122 telecom licences awarded by former Telecom Minister A Raja — had encroached upon its Executive powers.

DoT Secretary Chandrasekhar told the panel that it was not for the Judiciary to formulate policy matters. The JPC asked the Telecom Secretary to appear before it on March 12. He said the government was seeking a review of the apex court’s recent verdict on 2G licences. 

He also questioned the Supreme Court’s prerogative to raise fingers at the government’s policy of first-come-first-served. The official said that policy formulation was the prerogative of the Executive.

“The judgment, in respect of the policy, is directly contrary to the settled law as laid down by the Supreme Court that the essence of policy making and governance is the weighing and balancing of different values and considerations, which is the role of the Executive, and it is not permissible for the court to take this exercise upon itself and engage in policy making, both for the reason that it is not its role to do so and does not have the expertise to do so,” the DoT Secretary said in his presentation.

The committee was told that the judgment erred in holding that the policy was "flawed" and "lopsided" on the grounds that in the view of the court, the considerations of promoting the growth, affordability, penetration of wireless services in semi-urban and rural areas, as well as maintaining a level-playing field between the existing and new licences for 2G spectrum, were outweighed by the considerations of maximising short-term revenue for the state.

A day earlier, the government had said it would need at least 400 more days to complete the auction process as opposed to the four-month deadline given to it by the court. Later, JPC member and CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta described the government’s argument as “dangerous.”

In the name of defending the constitutional sanctity, the government is going all out to seek revision of the SC judgment,” he said. 

Dasgupta said the government could not hide behind `constitutional niceties’ when the public exchequer has suffered a huge loss on account allotment of licences with ulterior motives.