Should illegally acquired 2G licenses be terminated now?

The reluctant Raja has resigned as the telecom minister to avoid further embarrassment to the government on the alleged irregularities in the 2G spectrum scam worth Rs.1.76 lakh crore. Well, the writing was always on the wall – that he had to go sooner rather than later; but how soon would the tainted minister be brought to his knees was the question in the mind of people.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has clearly indicated that A Raja evaded norms at every level as he carried out the dubious 2G license awards in 2008 at a throw-away price which was discovered from a nascent market of 2001.
Moreover, DoT’s ‘first-come, first-served’ policy for the allocation of 2G mobile phone airwaves to telecom operators instead of going for an auction, could well have sown the seeds of favouritism and lack of transparency in the whole allocation process. This invalid procedure gave unfair advantage to certain companies over others.
Further, the CAG report points out that,

“The policy was not transparent and the DoT had tipped off the firms in advance, as a result of which they had been able to arrange demand drafts worth Rs.1, 650 crore in just 45 minutes to obtain pan-India licenses.”

Ideally, the DoT should have rejected the applications for the telecom companies which did not meet the eligibility criteria set by the department on the date of their application, in the process of allocation of unified access service licenses.
A Hindi proverb describes it all – “Taali ek haath se nahi bajti.”

No scam can thrive without involvement of at least one beneficiary on the either sides of the story. Thus, it goes without saying that if Raja were to benefit from the fraud, it couldn’t have been possible without involvement of a few telecom companies violating norms in the 2G spectrum award process.

The apex auditor has pointed out that according to the license conditions; any firm which is shown to have misrepresented itself is liable to have its license cancelled outright.
It is said that no less than 85 out of 122 new licenses awarded under the leadership of A Raja were illegal.
Most of the CAG-flagged illegal licenses have been awarded to new operators –

Telecom Company	Number of Licenses
Unitech	22
Loop Telecom	21
Datacom	22
S Tel	6
Balwas	14
Total	85

In the final analysis, the loss of revenues to the government has translated into gains for mobile operators and hence, the mobile users of such companies which were ineligible and did not comply with the prescribed conditions of the precious mobile airwaves.
Certainly, the loss of revenues to the government of hundreds of crore of population can not be tolerated against the fruits of benefit being enjoyed by a few crores of mobile subscribers of the companies that acquired the spectrum illegally.

Moreover, owners of these licenses, obtained at throw-away valuations, have in turn sold significant stakes in their companies at high premium; rather than engaging and building business opportunity out of the valuable resources. For the older players, the CAG report pointed out that they held substantial amounts of spectrum above and beyond what they were eligible to get, without paying to the exchequer.
Probably, the time is ripe to take prompt actions and not fall into the trap of red-tapism, enquiries and commissions being set up to deal with such scams. Let all those telecom companies that suppressed facts, disclosed incomplete information and submitted fictitious documents to the DoT be booked under the law and be liable to outright cancellation of their licenses.
What do you think?