The Supreme Court Tuesday said it would hear Friday the central government's plea for another extension of time for commencing the auction and allocation of 122 2G licences and spectrum that were cancelled by the apex court by its order of Feb 2, 2012.
A bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya directed the listing of the matter on Aug 24 after senior counsel P.P.Rao mentioned it before the court.
The department of telecom (DoT), in its application, has sought the extension, saying that it needed time till Nov 12, 2012, to commence the auction and another 40 days to complete it and allocate licenses and spectrum.
Seeking the second extension, the government said that it needed more time to auction 2G licences in "public interest" to ensure that the "auction yielded maximum revenue to the government of India. It would, therefore, be in interest of justice to grant the extension needed".
The DoT Aug 9 moved the apex court seeking another extension for the auction and allocation of 2G licences. The present extension is coming to an end Aug 31, 2012.
The first ongoing extension of three months was given by the court by its April 24 order.
The court, while cancelling the 2G licences, had given the government four months' time till June 2 to complete the process of auctioning the cancelled licenses. This was also the date when the licenses that were cancelled were to be terminated.