2G scam: No arm twisting by govt, S-Tel tells Supreme Court

Chennai-based telecom operator S-Tel, which has been granted licenses for six circles, on Tuesday denied the allegation of any arm twisting by the department of telecommunications (DoT) for withdrawing its complaint in which it had challenged the government's cutt-off date.

S-Tel, a joint venture between the Shiva group and Bahrain Telecom submitted that its license was not canceled by DoT on March 5, 2010 but it had only suspended its service on the security grounds.

"Issue was of equipment from Chinese vendors and involvement of Chinese engineers in the operation," said the counsel appearing for S-Tel adding that after some time the issue was resolved by involving local engineers in the operations.

Earlier, it was alleged in the court that government had resorted to arm-twisting against the company for challenging the Centre's order of preponing of cut-off date for spectrum allocation.

It was alleged that the company was forced to compromise with the government and it had to withdraw the petition from the court.

The bench, after hearing its contentions, said, "you used the court process when it was favourable. You withdrew it when it was against you."