The petition filed by Social Action Forum for Manav Adhikar, an NGO, has challenged the government's decision on October 19, this year to allocate spectrum as something that would result in a loss of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) to the national exchequer.

"The decision making process of the government - the department of telecommunications and A Raja, Minister of IT and Communications - is faulty and flawed because it was rigged, and the match was fixed towards a pre-determined end which vitiates the entire decision making process," said the NGO comprising lawyers, professionals and others.

While seeking a probe by CBI or Central Vigilance Commission, it said: "This is a swindle which requires to be fully investigated and probed as newspaper reports suggest that one party M/s S Tel has offered over Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) for spectrum."

It had sought the apex court interference to examine and scrutinise the decision-making process to prevent a fraud perpetrated by the government "who must satisfy its conscience that its decision was based on relevant considerations and was not based on extraneous/collateral considerations.

While seeking a direction to the government to follow a bidding process and hold a public auction for allocation of spectrum, besides setting aside the government's arbitrary decision, the NGO submitted that spectrum being a valuable and scarce resource cannot be gifted or squandered away for a song.

"It has been given at a throwaway price of Rs 1,650 crore (Rs 16.50 billion), when its market price is much higher," it added.

The decision was taken in undue haste and would be detrimental to the growth of telecommunication sector which had witnessed phenomenal growth by attracting substantial FDI, the petition filed through Parekh and Company stated, adding that the decision had been taken without placing it before the Group of Ministers who had been deliberately bypassed.

The issue was earlier considered on first come, first serve basis for allocating spectrum to existing operators, the petition said, adding that over 575 applications had been received from 46 applicants.

The new players should be selected only through a multi-stage bidding process. It further said the government had resorted to pick and choose on the recommendations of TRAI and had selectively accepted only some recommendations.

The Centre had just announced that it would auction 3G spectrum but had not done so far for 2G spectrum, which smacks of arbitrariness.

"The government cannot adopt different yardsticks when it comes to deal with valuable and scarce resources and this again shows double standards," it said, adding that the government was required to follow an open, fair and transparent process and adopt a uniform policy while taking decisions which had a bearing on public interest.