Unitech has moved the Company Law Board, seeking stay on auctioning or any other sale or transfer of assets of Unitech Wireless, its telecom joint venture with Norwegian giant Telenor.

"Pass an order restraining the Respondents from taking any step whatsoever in pursuance of the 'Auction Notice' published on August 1, 2012," Unitech said in its application.

Uninor, Wednesday announced that it will auction its existing business, including its assets. In case, it is not possible, it will liquidate the company as its licences will be cancelled on September 7.

“Transfer by way of auction is only a feeble attempt to malafidely colour the process of transfer of assets of Uninor as fair (though the fact remains that it is unfair, malafide and oppressive),” Unitech said.

 Unitech said that asset transfer could not be made without the approval of the Department of Telecommunications. “It defies logic as to how any transfer of assets can take place in the absence of the DoT approval for transfer of licences which is the sine qua non of operation of those assets,” it said.

Challenging board’s decision to auction the company with the brand name, ‘Uninor’, which is an amalgamation of two established brands, Unitech and Telenor Unitech said, “Simply because Telenor does not want to partner with Unitech cannot be a reason for Unitech to allow the brand name to be sold away,” Unitech said.

“Telenor wants to auction the assets of Uninor because it does not want to participate in the process of fresh allocation of spectrum through the existing joint venture company Uninor in which the petitioners (Unitech) are its partners. This is on the ground that there are legacy issues with the petitioners. This is clearly irrational and opposed to the principles underlying the joint venture,” the company said.

It said that the decision to go ahead with the auction is premature, until the rules of the fresh licensing processes are finalised by the government.

“It is not feasible at all and comes with a fait accompli, namely that there will be no participant other than Telenor.”