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The Department of Telecom on Tuesday questioned the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal's jurisdiction on hearing the petition challenging the government's decision to stop 3G roaming agreements.
The DoT had issued the ban order to five operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Tata Teleservices. The operators had challenged this order and the TDSAT had asked the DoT not to enforce it.
Additional Solicitor General Mr A.S. Chandiok appearing for the Department of Telecom told the Tribunal that it has no jurisdiction to entertain the petitions which are altering the terms of telecom licence. The ASG said that in its recent judgment, the Supreme Court has said that the Tribunal cannot entertain the petition which is altering the licence conditions. On this, the Tribunal asked the Government to file a separate application in this regard. The ASG said, “It would be filed today only.”
Further, the Tribunal asked the operators to file replies of the new coming application questioning its jurisdiction by Friday this week and directed to list the matter on January 9 for next hearing. Meanwhile, State-owned BSNL today requested to implead into this ongoing dispute and make it a party in the suite.
Additional Solicitor General Mr A.S. Tankha appearing for BSNL submitted that that PSU is going to be affected by the outcome of its hearing and it should be heard.
On this, the TDSAT Chairman, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha, said it should be decided only after deciding on the preliminary objections raised by the DoT.
During the proceedings, Mr. Chandiok submitted that operators have still not complied with the interim order of Tribunal on December 24, directing them to handover the copies of their 3G roaming agreements.
The operators said that they were asked to handover their agreements only to the Tribunal and not to the DoT. However, the Tribunal said that such agreements submitted by the operators can be inspected by DoT through its counsel.
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