NEW DELHI, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- India's Supreme Court, ruling in a telecommunication scandal, canceled 122 cellular licenses issued in 2008.
The bandwidth licenses were issued by former telecommunications minister by Andimuthu Raja, who is in jail awaiting trial. Raja has denied any wrongdoing in the scandal that has dogged the Congress party-led coalition government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Opposition parties claim the licenses were sold well below market prices, resulting in losses to the country of over $35 billion.
The ruling by the high court means the 122 licenses held by eight companies, including foreign firms, would be revoked. The high court said the licenses should be canceled, as they were awarded in a totally arbitrary and unconstitutional way -- and asked the government regulator to prepare for a new auction of 2G mobile telephone licenses within four months.
Among those affected by the high court ruling will be Uninor, the Indian joint venture of Norway's Telenor and Unitech, CNN reported.
"We have been unfairly treated as we simply followed the government process we were asked to," it said in a statement, CNN-IBN reported. "We are shocked to see that Uninor is being penalized for faults the court has found in the government process."
Opposition lawmaker Subramanian Swamy, one of the petitioners in the case, said the court's judgment pointed to the "collective failure" of the government, the Financial Times reported.
Current Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal defended the coalition government and blamed the previous opposition government for putting in place the policies that led to the scandal, the BBC reported. He said the prime minister was in no way responsible for the scandal.
