The Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking modification of its 2012 verdict in the 2G spectrum case which laid down the condition that the government had to adopt the action route for allocating spectrum resources.
In its 2012 verdict, the Supreme Court had cancelled 2G spectrum licences given to various companies by the UPA government and stated, "While transferring or alienating the natural resources, the State is duty bound to adopt the method of auction by giving wide publicity so that all eligible persons can participate in the process."
The 2G spectrum scam involved politicians and government officials in India illegally undercharging mobile telephony companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they would then use to create 2G subscriptions for cell phones. In 2008, 122 new second-generation (2G) Unified Access Service (UAS) licences were given to telecom companies at a price arrived at in 2001 and on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Kapil Sibal, the then Minister of communications & IT in the Manmohan Singh government, claimed in 2011, that "zero loss" was caused by distributing 2G licences on first-come-first-served basis.
The 2G spectrum scam had rocked the UPA II government and political analysts consider it to be among the chief factors that led to the downfall of Manmohan Singh government in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
