Not feasible to shift Aircel subscribers, SC told

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 2

The government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it was not feasible to shift Aircel subscribers to other telecom operators as it would “result into public dissatisfaction at large”.

In an application filed on the eve of the hearing slated for Friday, the Department of Telecom suggested that Aircel subscribers may be asked to avail of the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) facility to choose the service provider of their choice, if they wished to continue with the same number.

The top court had on January 6 threatened to cancel Aircel’s spectrum and licence in 14 circles if Maxis Group owner Malaysian businessman T Ananda Krishnan and the company’s official Ralph Marshall failed to make appearance in two weeks.

It had asked the DoT to look for alternative service providers for 91 million Aircel subscribers.

It had banned transfer of 2G licences from Malaysia's Maxis to any other firm on the ground that Maxis officials of were avoiding judicial process in India. The licences were originally allotted to Aircel.

However, the DoT said: “The provisional shifting of subscribers by the department against their choice may result into public dissatisfaction at large. Further, any such provisional shifting will result into shifting of revenue to other service providers and may require auction process to be followed.”

The government said: “Any such shifting (of subscribers) is not feasible for the answering respondent (DoT) to implement.”

It said: “Whenever any licence is cancelled, a public notice is issued to all subscribers to avail MNP to retain their number before the network of cancelled licencee is stopped from operation.”

Earlier, a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) had on January 24 moved the Supreme Court seeking to be heard in the Aircel-Maxis 2G spectrum case, saying it had implications for them.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar had agreed to hear their plea on February 3 after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi demanded urgent hearing. Rohatgi had said public sector banks had lent money to Aircel and the court shouldn’t pass any further orders without hearing them out.

Rohatgi had emphasised that public sector banks were an affected party as they had substantial exposure in the telecom company.