Agencies/New Delhi


A man speaks on a mobile phone in front of a billboard of Uninor in the western city of Ahmedabad yesterday. Norway’s Telenor plans to fight an order by the Supreme Court to cancel 22 telecoms licences held by its Indian joint venture Uninor
Norway’s Telenor plans to fight an order by the Supreme Court to cancel 22 telecoms licences held by its Indian joint venture Uninor, but has not ruled out abandoning the country altogether, the head of the company’s Asian operations said.
Telenor has been “unfairly harmed” by the order, Sigve Brekke told a news conference yesterday. Legal options for the company include seeking a review of the court ruling, he said.
India’s top court ordered on Thursday that all 122 licences issued under a scandal-tainted 2008 sale be revoked within four months and asked the industry regulator to propose rules for an auction of licences and spectrum.
Telenor began business in India later that year when it bought a majority stake in a nascent mobile phone operator founded by Indian real estate company Unitech Ltd.
“We have been asked to lose all (our investments) just because India in hindsight has changed its mind. Is that fair?,” Brekke said.
“I am angry and upset, because it’s very clear that we are unfairly harmed,” Brekke said, adding Telenor is exploring diplomatic as well as legal options to resolve the issue.
Telenor’s joint venture with Unitech, which operates under the Uninor brand, has been among the most aggressive of India’s newer telecoms companies. It has close to 40mn customers, or more than a 4% share of the market.
Telenor has said it will write down 4.2bn crowns ($722mn) related to its Indian operations.
Several Telenor investors have said the company should abandon India in the wake of the ruling, citing the weak prospects for the business.
India is the world’s second-largest cellular market by subscribers, with 894mn at the end of December, although fierce competition means call rates are among the lowest.
“Of course exit is also an option,” Brekke said. “Because if this does not work out, if there is no way we can make sense out of this, of course we need to look at exit as an option.”
Telenor chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas said last week that Telenor had spent about two-thirds of the total planned investment of $3bn in Asia’s third-largest economy.
Telenor shares were down 0.9% yesterday morning compared with a 0.1% drop in the European telecom index.
The companies whose licences were ordered cancelled have the right to bid in an auction to regain the licences and radio airwaves.
The Supreme Court ordered the telecoms regulator to come up with rules to auction the spectrum within four months.
Brekke said Telenor would decide on whether to bid for the in the auction after reviewing the criteria and reserve price.
Only companies that lost the licences granted in 2008 should be allowed to bid, he said.
“Of course we’ll do our best to participate in an auction,” he said, but added that Telenor would not “blindly” bid regardless of the rules and the base price.
Telenor, majority-owned by the Norwegian government, has said Norway is monitoring the situation in India and would help the company find a solution to protect its investments.
Brekke said Telenor’s Indian operations would keep expanding over the next four months “as if nothing has happened.”
“We came to India to win - we came here to stay,” Brekke said.
“We’re not dead yet,” he said, but he added he was “angry and upset because it is very clear that we (Telenor) have been unfairly harmed.”
BJP should apologise: Congress
The ruling Congress Party yesterday described the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as “most irresponsible,” and said the main opposition party should apologise for criticising the judiciary after the recent judgment in the telecom spectrum case. “The BJP should apologise for its irresponsible behaviour of criticising the judiciary when the judgment is not against the government,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said. “It is a sad day for democracy... The BJP has made it a practice to criticise the judiciary if it does not agree with the BJP or Subramanian Swamy,” Singhvi said, referring to the Janata Party president whose petition to name Home Minister P Chidmabaram as a co-accused in the 2G spectrum case was turned down by the trial court on Saturday. Singhvi said it was sad that the BJP was criticising the judiciary and other institutions “day after day, minute after minute.”