The Supreme Court of India Tuesday postponed to May 10 its hearing of a plea submitted by the government about reviewing certain aspects of an earlier judgement cancelling 122 telecom licenses.

The Indian government's plea primarily relates to the applicability of the "first-come, first-served" policy that New Delhi followed in 2008 to allot telecommunication licenses.

The apex court, in its Feb. 2 judgment, has called the policy of bandwidth allotment "arbitrary and unconstitutional," and ordered scrapping of the licenses given to several companies for providing mobile telecom services. It also directed the government to follow the auction route for allotment of state-controlled resources.

The government, in its plea, said that the court "erred" in calling the process illegal and that the matter was "beyond the jurisdiction of courts."

The plea seeks a clarification on an appropriate way to allocate natural resources, including mines. It isn't seeking a review of the license cancellations.

Separately, the Indian joint venture of Norway's Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) -- Unitech Wireless Ltd. -- told the court that it would challenge the Indian telecom regulator's latest proposals to auction only one slot of bandwidth.

The apex court's ruling had led to the cancellation of a total 413.6 MHz of bandwidth, which translates to at least three pan-India slots of 5MHz each, or 15 slots of 1.25 MHz each.

But the regulator had last week proposed the auction of only one slot of bandwidth, which Unitech Wireless said would lead to scarcity of spectrum and push up the auction price.

Unitech Wireless's 22 licenses also face cancellation as a result of the court order.

Unitech Wireless' move comes a day after the government said it was referring back the bandwidth auction proposals to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for review.

The government expects the regulator to get back with its views by May 14 and plans to take a final decision on the auction process by end of May.

 
    -By R.Jai Krishna, Dow Jones Newswires, +91.11.4356.3333; krishna.jai@dowjones.com
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