Telecom Lead India: Russia
and India will discuss the revocation of mobile licenses of Sistema Shyam
TeleServices (MTS India) at the BRICS summit in Delhi.
The BRICS summit will be held in India at the end of
March, and the Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev is expected to take
part on March 28-29.
“We hope that our key telecom companies will continue
their operations in India because this will ensure further
development of the Indian telecommunications market,” said Arkady
Dvorkovich, an adviser to the Russian President.
The revocation of spectrum licenses is one of the
issues that Dmitry Medvedev is going to discuss with the Indian government
officials behind the scenes of the BRICS summit.
Sistema sends notice to the government of India to settle
dispute over revocation of SSTL licenses
Recently, Sistema sent a formal notice to the government of
India over the decision by the Supreme Court of India to cancel 122 telecom
licenses, including 21 licenses belonging to Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL),
in which Sistema owns a 56.68 percent share.
Sistema files review petition before Supreme Court
Sistema has also filed a review petition before the Supreme
Court following the Supreme Court’s judgment on February 2, 2012 which directed
quashing of the 21 telecom licenses granted to SSTL in 2008.
On February 2, the Supreme Court issued a ruling canceling
122 licenses granted in 2008. The Court ruled that the licenses issued in 2008
should be cancelled, and the ruling applies to the licenses of 11 mobile
operators including SSTL.
The operators have a right to continue their operations for
the period of 4 months which will be used by the Indian telecom regulator TRAI
to develop proposals for reallocation of licenses. It is expected that the
operators will be able to file repeat applications for licenses and take part in the
new spectrum auction.
