Reliance gets stay on BSNL blackout

Next hearing on Nov 30; asks Reliance Info to deposit Rs 40cr with BSNL by Monday.

A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has asked Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to maintain status quo on the interconnect agreement with Reliance Infocomm. The matter will be taken up for hearing on November 30.

The Division Bench, comprising Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Anil Kumar, also directed Reliance Infocomm to deposit Rs 40 crore with BSNL by Monday as an interim payment.

The Division Bench was hearing an appeal by Reliance Infocomm against Thursday's order by a single-judge Bench dismissing its petition seeking to stop disconnection by BSNL for violating the interconnect agreement between the two.

It asked BSNL to file its reply to the private telecom operator's appeal and posted the matter for further hearing on November 30.

The court also directed Reliance to file an affidavit confirming that it had stopped misrouting of international calls as local calls into the BSNL network.

When contacted, BSNL Chairman and Managing Director AK Sinha Sinha said, "We will abide by the court order. We will examine the court judgment and then decide our next course of action."

A BSNL official said Reliance continued with its misrouting even in October though it had given an undertaking saying it had stopped such activities from September 16, 2004.

BSNL on Thursday disconnected some points of interconnections in Bangalore and Nasik. "This connection was due to some other dispute in payments," an official said.

In its first media statement, Reliance today said, " We had filed an appeal before the Division Bench of Delhi High Court against the order of single judge refusing interim relief. The division bench of Delhi High Court has directed BSNL to maintain status-quo and directed Reliance to deposit a further amount of Rs 40 crores. The matter is sub-judice."

The private operator had approached the court saying that BSNL should be restrained from disconnecting the points of interconnections as it would cause troubles for its 9 million subscribers.

The single judge court had dismissed Reliance's petition saying the manner in which the private operator had conducted its business activities was in dishonest breach of interconnect agreement.

Reliance had also appealed for the appointment of arbitrators by the two parties to settle the dues, which the court rejected.

The private operator had said that the Home Country Direct service (HCDS) started by it in the US five months ago should be treated differently from the general international long distance calls.

In case of ILD calls, the private operator has to pay BSNL Rs 4.25 a minute as access deficit charge for every call terminated in to the latter's network. Reliance said that the HCDS calls should attract the access deficit charge paid in case of a local call as per the interconnection agreement.

It claimed HCD was in line with the prevailing international practice and also satisfied the norms set by the International Telecom Union (ITU).

In its letter to BSNL, Reliance had proposed the appointment of former Chief Justice of India Justice SP Bharucha as the arbitrator on its behalf. The private operator had also claimed that the total relevant access deficit charges for the traffic terminated on BSNL network as well as other private operators, amounted to Rs 29 crore, which it had already paid to BSNL.