A Raja likely to file writ petition at SC: Sources

Excerpts from India Business Hour on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

The Supreme Court order of February 2, which orders cancellation of 122 telecom licenses, also made several critical observations over the role of A Raja, the then telecom minister, in allotting the licenses and favouring many of the applicants. CNBC-TV18's Malvika Jain now learns that A Raja is set to file a petition challenging the order on the grounds that he would be denied a fair trail as a consequence of the order.

This will be his first petition since Raja was taken into judicial custody. The basis of the application will be that, Raja feels, that he has been denied natural justice. According to legal experts, Raja is going to file a petition on the basis that any order, which was related to him, in this case of cancellation of licenses, should have been passed only after Raja had been heard. Raja's argument had been taken into consideration because now effectively once the Supreme Court has passed an order saying that the license grant was illegal he has been convicted.

To just read out a paragraph from the order, which is likely to form the basis of his petition, the order says "the exercise undertaken by the officials of DoT under the leadership of then Minister IT, that is A Raja, was arbitrarily and contrary to public interest apart from being in violation of doctrine of equality granted licenses to these companies".

Therefore, effectively, it says that A Raja was guilty and this is the main reason why he will be filing a petition in the court seeking quashing of the Supreme Court's order of cancellation.

The Supreme Court order had also given a clean chit to P Chidambaram, a line that was followed by the trial court, but there was a difference. The SC said Chidambaram and his ministry officials were not kept in the loop by the DoT, whereas the trial court order said that Chidamabram was party to the decision but not party to the conspiracy.