Telecom tribunal TDSAT has reserved its judgment over the plea of cellular operators challenging the Government's directive to stop intra-circle roaming on their 3G networks.
The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal bench, headed by its Chairman, Mr Justice S. B. Sinha, concluded hearing on the plea of the operators around 10 days back.
From the third week of March, TDSAT had started in-chamber proceedings on the matter, at the request of the operators.
Telecom firms had requested in-chamber hearing as they were fearing leakage of details and cost inputs of their respective Intra-Circle Roaming (ICR) agreements.
The tribunal was hearing a bunch of petitions filed by the operators — Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel and Tata Tele — challenging the December 23 directions of the Department of Telecom (DoT) to scrap the pacts within 24 hours.
In an interim order on December 24, TDSAT had asked DoT not to take any coercive action against the operators till further orders for their 3G roaming pacts.
Earlier, the operators had handed over the copies of their ICR to DoT on the direction of the TDSAT.
On February 16, the Tribunal had asked them to explain as to how they would compensate the Government if they lose the case.