Supreme Court to hear govt's Presidential Reference of 2G verdict from July 10

New Delhi, May 11 (PTI) The Supreme Court today decided to commence hearing from July 10 on Presidential Reference moved by the Indian government for the apex court's opinion on issues arising out of its 2G spectrum judgement including whether auctioning of natural resources across all sectors is mandatory. A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia issued notices to the state governments and industrial chambers FICCI and CII and sought their responses on behalf of the private industries. The Reference has also asked the court for its view whether the verdict in the 2G case be given retrospective effect for radio waves granted since 1994. The court also issued notices to the NGO, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on whose petitions a bench comprising justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly (since retired) had delivered a judgement on February 2 cancelling 122 telecom licences by holding that the first-come-first-served policy was illegal and unconstitutional. The bench headed by Justice Singhvi had held that all natural resources should be allocated through auction. The Constitution Bench also comprising justices D K Jain, J S Khehar, Dipak Misra and Ranjan Gogoi said that the notices shall be served within a period of two weeks to the parties including by email, fax, courier or by the messenger of the Union of India. The bench also said the notices on the reference will be served on all states through their standing counsel. It made it clear that for expeditious hearing of the matter, statements of fact and arguments shall be filed by the parties in the court within three weeks. The government had on April 12 moved the Reference signed by President Pratibha Patil. A meeting of the Indian Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had on April 10 cleared the Telecom Ministry's proposal to seek the Supreme Court's opinion on various issues arising out of the February 2 judgement. PTI