TDSAT asks Bharti, Tatas to pay 10% penalty for ILD violation

The Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today directed Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications to pay 10% of the Rs 50 crore penalty each imposed on them by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for violation of ILD licence terms and conditions.

Passing an interim order, the TDSAT asked Bharti and Tata to pay Rs 5 crore each to the DoT within two weeks.

The DoT had slapped the penalty on them for providing international private lease circuits to foreign company SingTel, allegedly violating the terms and conditions of International Long Distance (ILD) licence.

DoT set up a committee to examine and suggest the amount of penalty to be imposed on Tata and Bharti for violating the ILD licence norms.

As per the licensing norms, Indian ILD operators are authorised to provide Indian circuits to a foreign carrier (like SingTel in this case) so that they are able to provide end-to-end services to their customers in their territories.

The committee found, from submissions made by Bharti, that the company had raised the invoice to SingTel at its Singapore address for the portion of circuit provided by Bharti Airtel.

Airtel paid the applicable licence fee on the revenue earned by providing the Indian half circuit.