The petition, which names Bharti Mobile Ltd, Essar Investment Ltd, Evergrowth Telecom Ltd, the erstwhile JT Mobiles Ltd, has also challenged ``the defrauding of customers by charging them high fees and providing them with inadequate services, allowing the splitting up of the licence, permitting change in the ownership of the holder of the licence, permitting operation without a valid licence, permitting speculation through manipulated alienation in a colourable manner, permitting dilution of the stipulated minimum shareholding, and permitting foreign equity in excess of stipulated norms.''

The issues are raised in the context of the cancellation of the licence of EverGrowth Telecom Limited (EGTL) to operate the cellular services in Punjab.The Division Bench, in its show-cause notice, has alleged that Bharti Mobile ``is one of the beneficiaries of the largesse brought about by the illegal actions''. It has also claimed that Essar ``caused huge losses to the public exchequer and also cheated its subscribers''.

The Delhi High Court issued the notice based on a public interest litigation (PIL) moved by Mr RC Sharma and taken up by the Indian Council of Legal Aid and Advise, an NGO patronised by Justice Bhagwati. The PIL had said there has been loss of public revenue to the tune of Rs 450 crore due to the "action/inaction" of MoC.

The division bench of Justice Arun Kumar and Justice AK Sikri in the Delhi High court, has asked the MoC to reply to the show cause notice by February 26.

EGTL is a 100 per cent subsidiary of the erstwhile JT Mobile - the cellular service provider in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab - which was acquired by Bharti Enterprises early last year. Evergrowth, however, was not a part of the Bharti-JT Mobile deal. The Evergrowth licence was cancelled in December 1996, when JT Mobile's promoters pledged the company's shares with the Essar Group.

While the company wants to pay only the amount that was due from it as licence fee, on the date of cancellation of the licence, the DoT has been insisting that the company pay the entire amount of over Rs 450 crore, including licence fee accrued during the 693 days, when the licence was lying cancelled.

Earlier, on August 31, the government had sent a letter to Bharti Mobile, asking to clear all arrears within 90 days. However, Bharti officials have clarified that their company has nothing to do with EGTL and the company is actually a part of the Essar Group. The case is currently pending approval with the Attorney General of India.

Meanwhile, in the case that was filed in the High Court, the petitioner has accused the MoC of allowing the splitting up of licence. This, according to the PIL, is not permitted by the licence terms. The petitioner has also protested that allowing a change in ownership of the licence is not permitted. The petitioner has also said that JT Mobiles, which had licence for Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka "miserably failed to provide the service in Punjab circle''.

The petitioner alleges that "All these illegal actions have been done with the knowledge and approval of the MoC. After the transfer, Essar commenced operation to provide the service in the State of Punjab even though they were not authorised to do so thereby violating the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act." The petition further maintains that though Essar had 12,000 customers, it has not been able to offer inter-connectivity with the land-based telephone network and consumers are forced to accept a service which is restricted from cellphone to cellphone.