May restrain Aircel Maxis from earning 2G spectrum revenue, mulls Supreme Court

The case concerning allegations of bribery in the 2G spectrum allocation saw an unexpected turn today, with the Supreme of India Court proposing to restrain Aircel Maxis from earning revenue from the 2G spectrum..The idea was floated by a Bench of Chief Justice Khehar and Justices NV Ramana and DY Chandrachud after respondents T Ananda Krishnan and Ralph Marshal, both associated with Malaysian company Maxis, failed to appear before the Court..Keeping in mind that the proposed order might have adverse consequences on a large mass of subscribers, the Bench has further asked the Department of Telecommunication to devise ways and means to allot the existing licences to another service provider..The Bench also chose to caution the parties that if they remained staunch in their refusal to appear before the Court, the order would certainly be passed..The Aircel-Maxis deal came under the scanner after Aircel owner C. Sivasankaran told the Central Bureau of Investigation that he was pressurised to sell his stakes to Maxis..Subramanian Swamy’s plea for charge-sheeting P Chidambaram for his role in granting FIPB approval to the Aircel-Maxis deal was also heard by the Court today, but it proposed to deal with the issue at a later stage.Prashant Bhushan appeared for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and Senior Advocate K K Venugopal appeared as amicus..The matter is now expected to be placed before the Court in another two weeks for further consideration.