SC issues notice to Anil Ambani over RCom Ericsson dues
Live MintNew Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Anil Ambani on a plea by Ericsson India Pvt. Senior lawyer Harish Salve, appearing for Reliance Jio said, “Knowing the problems with prior dues and when giving physical guarantee, we can’t take the risk.” The court was responding to a contempt petition by RCom against the department of telecommunications claiming that it failed to furnish a no-objection certificate clearing RCom’s spectrum deal with Reliance Jio even after the court had directed it to do so. The Supreme Court had on 30 November cleared the sale of spectrum by the Anil Ambani-controlled RCom to elder brother Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio on condition that the seller furnishes ₹ 1,400 crore as corporate guarantee to the government within two days. Senior executives of RCom and Reliance Jio had last month met telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan to resolve issues flagged by the DoT around payment related to the spectrum deal between the two companies. The RCom-Reliance Jio deal is crucial for the Anil Ambani firm as the beleaguered telecom operator, which had been struggling with a mountain of debt and a failed merger with Aircel, finally decided to wind up its wireless business in December 2017 and announced a deal with Reliance Jio in which RCom’s assets, including 122.4MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1,800/2,100 MHz bands, more than 43,000 cell towers, 178,000 route km of fibre with a pan-India footprint and 248 media convergence nodes covering 5 million sq.