Supreme Court’s Cleaning Business

The Supreme Court of India, on Feb 2, scrapped telecom deals worth billions of dollars. Justices said the corruption and incompetence in 122 licenses awarded in 2008 had cost the state US$36 billion in potential revenue.

The court has given the companies involved four months to wrap up their operations, after which the government would re-auction the spectrum to investors.

The foreign companies are furious. In many cases, the licenses awarded in 2008 went to local business groups, who subsequently brought in foreign partners with better expertise.

One of the most prominent casualties appears to be Telenor of Norway, which entered India in 2009 and is the second largest foreign investor in the sector after Britain's Vodafone Group. Other investors that had poured money into the Indian telecom market included the UAE operator Etisalat, the Russian company Sistema, and Bahrain Telecommunications.

Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator for The Financial Times says, “It seems to cut two ways. Either, it is going to increase uncertainty in the sense that people are going to lose money since it has all been a very complicated and difficult process. This is bound to disturb investors, as they do not expect to lose money. On the other hand, people might reasonably conclude that India is cleaning itself up. It is set to become more transparent in the future. These sorts of things will aim to be better and that is actually quite attractive to foreign investors. So, right now it's too early to tell. It depends on the next stage of regulation and the granting of licenses that will unfold in this country.”

NO Novartis case

In 2006 the drug company Novartis took the Indian government to court over its patent law, in a move that threatened access to affordable medicines produced in India for millions of people across the developing world.

The company wants to get the law changed so that they could more easily extend the patents on their products, and stop generic companies producing the same medicines at a fraction of the price.

In the social media world, the campaign has been a big rage. There are a huge number of people writing @Novartis to drop its case Vs India. #STOPNovartis is buzzing big time on social media platforms.

http://msfaccess.org/STOPnovartis/

Drop the Case campaign, launched against Novartis has gathered nearly half a million signatures calling on the company to drop its case. Supreme Court is now due to give the final judgment on the case on 28th February 2012.

Vodafone-Hutch deal

Earlier in January this year, in India’s most vigorously contested tax dispute, the Apex Court pronounced its verdict vindicating Vodafone’s stand questioning the jurisdiction of the tax administration. The controversy which assumed unprecedented media visibility in the past few years surrounded Vodafone’s obligation to withhold tax on alleged capital gains that Hong Kong based Hutch group made in relation to $11 billion (around Rs. 56,980 crore today) investments (Vodafone) made for acquiring controlling interest in a telecom license.

CVC

The annulment of P.J. Thomas’ appointment as the chief vigilance commissioner (CVC) was viewed by some quarters as harsh, and they argued that Thomas was a victim of political rivalry in Kerala, his home cadre. But he couldn’t possibly be the government’s anti-corruption person in command if he was named in a charge-sheet alleging graft, said the court, in a blow to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P. Chidambaram who chose Thomas. But in larger frame, the decision brought appreciation to Indian judiciary and its strength.

Bellary mining ban

The clampdown on iron ore mining in Bellary (which later became mining of all kinds) was the first combative step taken by a public entity to curb illegalities in Karnataka for over a decade. Gali Janardhan Reddy, allegedly one of the main violators of mining laws is in jail, following a CBI probe. The move has had a significant impact on politics in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Meghalaya mining

Multinational cement major Lafarge was allowed to resume limestone mining after 17 months in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills. This was crucial for neighbouring Bangladesh, where the limestone was being sent to feed a cement plant. Lafarge is the largest listed company in Bangladesh, providing employment and commerce. Significantly, the court ordered the Indian government to set up a regulator for granting approvals to mining projects.

Black money SIT

The black money petition simply demanded that the government should recover all the untaxed money stashed away in European bank accounts. A lack of enthusiasm made the court create a special investigative team (SIT). The government cried foul and the bench hearing the appeal was split. It now awaits hearing by a three-judge bench.

Salwa Judum

A state-sponsored guerilla army that also allegedly engaged children in combat was declared illegal and unconstitutional. The Chhattisgarh government tried to justify giving guns to children, arguing that they had local knowledge of the terrain, which would help the state tackle Naxalites better.

Courting schools

The government made it compulsory to have at least 26% of a class from poor households living in the “neighbourhood”, causing the elite private schools to file a petition in protest. The court’s view on the government’s social engineering experiment is still pending.

But in a judgment, the Supreme Court has given all states time up to February 28 to build temporary toilets in all schools and permanent ones by March 31. And it has rightly refused to entertain any excuses. So far, only four states — Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh — have managed to meet 90 per cent of the target. Maharashtra, one of the richer states in this country, is shockingly lax with thousands of schools where there are no toilets for girls and some with no toilets at all.

Land not above the law of the land

The Uttar Pradesh land acquisition cases saw a strong statement from the court, which deemed those acquisitions in which the government took land for one purpose and used it for another. The court did not allow Mayawati’s government to get away with giving the land to real estate developers, reasoning that the land had been acquired for industrialization. Farmers either got their land back, or had to be given higher compensation. The builder lobby has got a dose of law making them realize, law’s supreme.

Right to Food

The decade-old Right to Food case saw the court face off against the government and the Planning Commission multiple times on where to draw the poverty line, and how to divide food subsidies between the Centre and the states. After much criticism of the government’s counsel in court, the Planning Commission revised its upper limit to define the poverty benchmark, but only by a little.

With all such verdicts, the Supreme Court of India has proved to be a strong pillar of democracy. The hope’s in the air. If the course of law continues taming the unbridled and doing so even faster, change is probably round the corner for India.