The Supreme Court of India has ruled that telecom spectrum is a sovereign asset owned by the government for the benefit of citizens, and cannot be claimed as property by telecom companies or their lenders.
A bench of Justices Pamidighantam S. Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar held that spectrum is a “material resource of the community” and must serve the common good. Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) only have a licence to use spectrum — not ownership rights.
The bench said the Union government is the owner and trustee of spectrum on the one hand, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is the regulator on the other, and taken together, they occupy the “entire province of telecommunications”.
The case arose from insolvency proceedings involving Aircel, which had taken loans worth ₹13,729 crore from domestic lenders. After defaulting on dues, lenders, including SBI, sought to recover their money by claiming rights over the spectrum allocated to the company by the Department of Telecommunications.
Rejecting the plea, the Court affirmed that without transfer of title, no ownership rights arise. Even if spectrum licences have features like transferability and exclusivity, they do not amount to ownership.
The judgment clarifies that spectrum licensing rights are not part of the asset pool in insolvency or liquidation proceedings, reinforcing the government’s control over national resources.
Mere recognition of spectrum licensing rights as an intangible asset by TSPs in the financial statements is not conclusive of their ownership, as it only represents control over future economic benefits,” Justice Narasimha, who authored the judgment, said.
Trai on DND
Trai plans to provide an appeal feature in the DND app to enable consumers to escalate unsatisfactorily addressed complaints for action by higher authorities, a top official said on Friday.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai) chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti told reporters that the regulator will roll out the revamped MyCall app in March to enable consumers file complaint about the quality of call.
