Union of India v. Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited, 2026 INSC 174 - 2G Spectrum - Telecom Licensing

Basic Case Information

Case name and neutral citation:Union of India v. Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited, 2026 INSC 174

Coram:Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K. Vinod Chandran

Judgment date:20 February 2026 (New Delhi)

Case Laws and Citations Referred

1. Centre for Public Interest Litigation and others v. Union of India and others, (2012) 3 SCC 1 (referred to in the judgment as “(2012) 3 SCC 13” and described as the 02.02.2012 2G spectrum judgment in W.P. (C) Nos. 423/2010 and 10/2011).

Statutes / Laws Referred

The judgment primarily turns on implementation of Supreme Court directions in the earlier 2G spectrum litigation and the telecom licensing framework, rather than on detailed statutory interpretation. From the text provided, the Court refers generally to:

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) framework and 2G/3G/800 MHz spectrum auctions.
• The powers and procedures of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in licensing and spectrum allocation.

No specific statutory sections (e.g., of the Telegraph Act or TRAI Act) are quoted in the extracted text, but the background is the telecom licensing regime under those statutes and the binding orders of the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum cases.

Three‑Sentence Brief Summary

The Supreme Court held that Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited is liable to pay the reserve price fixed for the November 2012 2G spectrum auction for all circles in which it continued operations from 02.02.2012, the date on which its earlier licences were quashed, until 30.04.2013 for the 8 circles where it later won spectrum and until 23.03.2013 for the remaining 13 circles. The Court overruled the TDSAT’s view that liability commenced only on 15.02.2013, clarifying that its order of 15.02.2013 expressly made the liability run from 02.02.2012, but agreed with TDSAT that interest could accrue only from 08.12.2014, following DoT’s delayed issuance of a show‑cause notice. The appeal was therefore allowed in part, recalculating principal and interest on this basis, with adjustment of amounts already paid and three months given for payment of the balance.