That triggered bitter battles in Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and various courts that eventually saw the NDA government -- Arun Shourie was the communications minister -- modify the policy.
Reliance obtained a universal service licence by paying Rs 1,651 crore (Rs 16.51 billion), which was what the fourth cellular licensees had paid a few years earlier, and a penalty to dispel the shadow cast most tellingly by the TDSAT chairman's statement that the service was illegal.
As one saga came to a close, another started. Anil Ambani, who received Reliance's telecom business in the settlement with his estranged elder brother, announced within months of the split that he would take RCom into GSM.
A war of words and letters broke out again, but eventually, RCom got the pan-India GSM spectrum by paying another Rs 1,651 crore.
Image: Two Indian painters work on a cellular phone billboard in Kolkata. | Photograph: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
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