When the government finally decided to relax the restrictions on CDMA players by allowing them to pay a licence fee equivalent to what GSM players paid plus a fine, Mittal understood the futility of further opposition and promptly agreed.

As the largest private mobile service provider by then, he could afford such generosity of spirit.

He cut short a holiday in December 2003 to fly back to Delhi and convince all the other GSM operators to accept the solution and withdraw court cases.  Most of the GSM operators had no choice but to say yes, though privately many of them wanted to continue the battle.

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