The verdict on 2G has opened a Pandora box of litigations. After Videocon Telecom and Loop Telecom, now C Sivasankaran, a serial entrepreneur, is planning to take the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to the Supreme Court, seeking .Rs 3,400 crore that he said he lost after the apex court had cancelled 122 licences, including six of STel’s in 2012.
He said: “I want my money back. I have lost Rs 3,400 crore that I had invested in the company overall. I had brought in equity and taken loans from Indian commercial banks and spent on network and people. I will file a petition against the Department of Telecommunications in the Supreme Court next month. If I have not done anything wrong, as per the courts, I want my money back. I want justice. I do not want to seek any other damages.”
UAE’s Etisalat, Norway’s Telenor and Russia’s Sistema will also seek damages from India for having to write off over $2.5 billion of investments after the apex court scrapped their licences. Etisalat, Telenor and Sistema have since exited or are in the process of exiting their mobile phone businesses in India, having written off investments worth $827 million, $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, after losing licences.
As a matter of fact, Sivasankaran’s STel had received telecom licences and spectrum in Assam, the Northeast, Bihar, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, and had subsequently sold a 42.7% stake to Bahrain Telecommunications (Batelco) for around $175 million. However, after STel’s licences were cancelled, Batelco sold the stake back to its Indian partner for $175 million. After Sivasankaran failed to pay up, Batelco won an international arbitration order claiming damages of around $211 million from Sivasankaran.
He said: “I want my money back. I have lost Rs 3,400 crore that I had invested in the company overall. I had brought in equity and taken loans from Indian commercial banks and spent on network and people. I will file a petition against the Department of Telecommunications in the Supreme Court next month. If I have not done anything wrong, as per the courts, I want my money back. I want justice. I do not want to seek any other damages.”
UAE’s Etisalat, Norway’s Telenor and Russia’s Sistema will also seek damages from India for having to write off over $2.5 billion of investments after the apex court scrapped their licences. Etisalat, Telenor and Sistema have since exited or are in the process of exiting their mobile phone businesses in India, having written off investments worth $827 million, $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, after losing licences.
As a matter of fact, Sivasankaran’s STel had received telecom licences and spectrum in Assam, the Northeast, Bihar, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, and had subsequently sold a 42.7% stake to Bahrain Telecommunications (Batelco) for around $175 million. However, after STel’s licences were cancelled, Batelco sold the stake back to its Indian partner for $175 million. After Sivasankaran failed to pay up, Batelco won an international arbitration order claiming damages of around $211 million from Sivasankaran.
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