NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday was bewildered by the innovative practice adopted for 2G spectrum allocation during A Raja's tenure as telecom minister — a press release on January 10, 2008, giving applicants 45 minutes to fulfil all requirements, including submission of bank guarantees totalling Rs 1,600 crore.

"We do not know how the applicants came to know about the allocation date, time and deadline which was conveyed through a press release. But you say all applicants were able to meet the requirements. Is it telepathy or they knew beforehand? There is more than that meets the eye," a Bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly said.

When solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam said that though the process might be wrong but at the end no one was put at an advantageous position, the Bench said, "Forget someone getting advantage. Is this a correct procedure? Is it consistent with fundamental principles on which the government works?"

The SG's calculated remark — "a more transparent procedure could have been in place" — failed to stop the deluge of remarks from a Bench which found the method adopted by DoT arbitrary and said it has been liberally termed so in the indicting CAG report.

"Do you call it reasonable that within 45 minutes, bank guarantees and other documents were to be produced? Is this a reasonable way of functioning," the Bench said. "The government has to function predictably. If it is not predictable, then it is not reasonable," it added. "You give them 45 minutes. How do you think they will comply with all the requirements. How does a applicant know about a press release?" it asked.

When the SG said that the only redeeming thing in this entire episode was the participation of all the applicants at the allocation at the appointed time and none of them having any complaint, the Bench said, "Nothing can redeem this.

It took DoT two months and eight days to issue a press release but it did not think of even giving a 24-hour deadline to meet the requirements. Senior officials in the ministry did not even bother to advise the minister, if at all he took such a decision." The SG said the CAG findings on alleged irregularities in spectrum allocations were being looked into with all seriousness. He said the government has set in motion a series of measures to fix responsibility and is ready to abide by all directions of the Supreme Court to see that rule of law was honoured.

Petitioner's counsel Prashant Bhushan pointed out that several applicants who had made request for spectrum allocation much before realtors like Unitech and unsung companies like Swan Telecom but they were relegated back in the queue on the ground of non-availability of spectrum.

The SG clarified that everyone who applied were promised spectrum and some have not got it yet because of logistical reason arising from the defence forces taking time to vacate spectrum occupied by them. Bhushan immediately asked as to why those who applied later were not kept waiting for the vacation of the spectrum by armed forces.