GSM players withdraw plea in TDSAT against Trai proposal

Three leading GSM operators have withdrawn their petition before the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), in which they had challenged the recommendations of the sectoral regulator on 2G spectrum.

The matter came up for hearing today, a day after Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular had approached TDSAT against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai’s) recommendations on 2G spectrum, including a one-time fee for holding radio waves beyond 6.2 Mhz.

The operators decided to withdraw their petition when TDSAT was about to reserve its order on the maintainability of the petition after hearing the case.

The tribunal observed that since Trai’s proposals were only recommendations, the same could not be challenged.

The three GSM players made two fresh applications today on pending issues before TDSAT, which includes pricing of spectrum and the amount of contracted spectrum.

According to agency reports, TDSAT Chairman Justice S B Sinha allowed the operators to approach other appropriate fora on their grievance. GSM operators’ counsel C A Sundaram said: “We withdrew the petition with liberty to file alternative proceedings or application before the appropriate authority.”

Trai counsel Meet Malhotra told the tribunal the regulator’s recommendations were advisory in nature. “Recommendations are advisory in nature and the central government is not bound by them. Hence, it is premature for the petitioners to have approached the tribunal,” Malhotra said, adding that legally they were not aggrieved by it.

The three operators had been criticising Trai’s recommendations and had asked the government to reject the report, as the suggestions were “retrograde” and “absurd”.