Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, the country’s two largest mobile operators, are challenging the Indian government’s right to stage its forthcoming spectrum auction.

The auction is scheduled for March. It is not known when the High Court of Delhi will hear the plea but Vodafone expects a hearing “soon”, according to India’s Economic Times.

The country plans to sell bandwidth in three parts of the spectrum – 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz – and expects to raise a minimum of INR200 billion ($3.7 billion).

Bharti and Vodafone use the 900MHz frequencies in most of the country’s 22 services areas. Their licences are due for renewal in November 2014, including in lucrative metropolitan areas such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, which will be available in next month’s auction.

The operators have to win back the frequencies at considerable cost if they want to continue to use them.

“Our decision to undertake this legal recourse is only aimed at protecting our legal and contractual right with regard to 900MHz spectrum and ensuring business continuity,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

The minimum auction price for the 900MHz band has been set at twice that for the 1800MHz band.

Meanwhile, Vodafone described the government’s decision to withdraw the operators’ 900MHz licences as “arbitrary” and added that it was “entitled to a fair and reasonable extension of its licence as per mutually agreeable terms”.