India's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to revoke all 122 telecoms licenses issued under a scandal-tainted 2008 sale.

India is divided into 22 telecoms zones and there are a total 281 zonal licences in the market of 894 million users and 15 mobile operators, led by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone's India unit.

Police say that in 2008, when India issued 122 new telecoms licenses, several rules were violated and bribes were paid to favour certain firms.