SC seeks DoT's view on 'wrong routing of calls'

The Supreme Court today sought Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) views on alleged wrong routing of calls by the private telecom operators on BSNL's network.

"Wrong routing has (become) quite common now. We have now so many cases here. We want to know, what DoT is doing on this," said the bench, headed by the Chief Justice S H Kapadia.

The Supreme Court's direction came while hearing a petition filed by BSNL, seeking penalty from Shayam Telelink and HFCL Infotel.

According to the counsels associated withe the case, DoT's view in this matter would be very crucial as it is the authority, which decides the numbering plans of the respective telephone operators.

Earlier, the Supreme Court has issued notices to Airtel, Vodafone and some other operators on this same issue.

In the petition, BSNL has challenged an order of the sectoral tribunal TDSAT, which on May 21 had dismissed its claim to recover ADC from the private telecom operators for for wrong routing.

The tribunal after holding that FWP Services is a fixed telephone service, said that in case of fixed phone no ADC is applicable.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal had observed that interconnection agreement between BSNL and Shayam Telelink and HFCL Infotel would not bind them to pay penalty on the phones used for fixed line service.

As per their interconnect agreement, BSNL was to charge highest levy for such unauthorised calls.