Will new spectrum sale lead to fresh legal battles?

Even as the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) has accepted the recommendations of the telecom commission on a 25 percent cut in reserve price from earlier, analysts say the EGoM's decision to not reserve any spectrum for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone may lead to fresh legal battles.

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Accepting the recommendations made by Bureaucrats at Sanchar Bhawan, the spectrum EGoM headed by finance minister P Chidambaram has fixed the reserve price for upcoming spectrum auction at Rs 1,765 crore per megahertz for 1800 MHz airwaves.
This price, though higher than what TRAI proposed, is lower by 26 percent as compared to the prices in the last auction in March 2013. Similarly, the prices in the 900 MHz band in Delhi & Mumbai are less than half of March 2013. Analysts view this as a positive for the sector.
SC Khanna, telecom expert says, “The beggars are more keen to buy the spectrum this time because the price is quite reasonable now."
The EGoM decided to not reserve any spectrum for companies such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone whose licenses are coming up for renewal. This implies that incumbent operators will need to necessarily bid in order to win back their spectrum and bidding could be aggressive with potential players like Idea, Videocon and Reliance Jio waiting in the wings.

"The licence was for 20 years and 20 years is over. Now, the government has every right to reform that spectrum and auction the spectrum and whosoever buys will run the service or network. According to what I think most of these companies were already using this and some of the companies who have not been able to get it; there will be a good bidding between these companies," adds Khanna.
With telecom companies threatening to move court on the issue of non-reservation of 900 MHz spectrum, experts feel that telecom sector may continue to be plagued with legal battles.