SC scraps 122 licences issued by A.Raja

In a historic Judgment SC has scrapped 122 licenses issued by former Telecom Minister A.Raja,who is languishing in Tihar for one year now.The country's political spectrum was eagerly awaiting the 2 G spectrum case judgment of the SC.Justice Singhvi and Ganguly said the issue of licenses were "arbitrary and unconstitutional ".The judges also said enlightened citizens have brought out the huge scam ,for the benefit of the unsuspecting citizens .This judgment is no doubt an indictment for the government.It also implies silent spectators like PM,and Chidambaram the then Finance Minister also failed in their duty to protect the common man's interest and are equally guilty.In this connection,it is noteworthy that the SC has asked the trial court judge to decide whether  PC should be inquired by CBI .It must be noted the SC judgment says in allocating scarce resources like spectrum the government should have given wide publicity for all eligible persons to participate.It also went on to say any other methodology would be misused by unscrupulous people who are only interested in garnering maximum financial benefit and have no respect for the constitutional ethos and values."

From the mobile users point of view, if your service provider happens to be one among the canceled licensee ,you may have to shift to another service provider.Obviously some other service provider is going to benefit by this .Opposition parties are surely going to take advantage of the SC judgment and step up their attack of the ruling UPA.

After canceling the licenses ,will the government re auction it ? Will TRAI come out with  new guidelines for  re auctioning ? . Surely the new auctions should benefit the government monetarily.If the licenses are going to be expensive,will the rates for mobile users go up ?This was precisely a premise on which A.Raja was defending his decision to go for 2001 rates in 2008.He said he wanted to keep down the prices, and penetrate the huge untapped market potential.Does it mean Raja was right ,from the users perspective ?.Not at all,no government can afford to lose monetarily and allow private entities to mint money at the expense of the government .But the flip side of it is, FDI might take a beating in the telecom sector .Already the government has cut a sorry figure in the eyes of prospective foreign investors on the issue of FDI in retail sector.

Another aspect is many Banks in the country have given loans and bank guarantee,against the licenses.Will the cancellation make it a bad debt for the banks ? Pranab has said the government is examining the implications of the SC judgment.If the business of those telecom companies whose licenses were canceled,shut their business,it is going to have an whole lot of chain reactions.If a business is shut,the employees may lose their job,it will have a telling effect on the ancillary industries and vendors,at-least temporarily.

One possible good fall out of the SC verdict could be politicians would be careful henceforth before looting public money.Corrupt politicians going behind bars and the unusual awakening among Indian citizens against corrupt politicians ,should be an eye opener to those politicians and bureaucrats who indulge in looting public money .