The Supreme Court Friday told the department of telecommunication (DoT) that it would consider its plea for more time to auction and allocate 122 cancelled 2G licences provided it was given an undertaking that its order on the auction would be implemented.
A bench of Justice G.S.Singhvi and Justice K.S.Radhakrishnan sought this undertaking from the secretary, DoT, that the department would adhere to the time schedule mentioned in its application.
The DoT has sought another extension of time, saying that it needed time till Nov 12 to commence the auction and another 40 days thereafter to complete the process of auction and allocation of 2G licences.
The earlier extension of three months that was given by the apex court on April 24 is ending August-end. The DoT moved the court for the second extension Aug 9.
The apex court, while cancelling 122 licences by its Feb 2 ruling, gave the government four months' time till June 2 to complete the process of auctioning the cancelled licenses. This was also the date when the operation of the licenses that were cancelled were to be terminated.