Paging, Cellular Operators To Back Trai Against Dot

The Cellular Operators Association of India, Indian Paging Services Association and Association of Basic Telecom Operators plan to support the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in the Delhi High Court in a case against the department of telecommunications (DoT).

The department had challenged the regulators right to arbitrate on disputes regarding licensing issues in August. DoT had questioned a TRAI judgement on a petition filed by Nice Paging, which restrained the department from encashing the paging operators licence fees.

The department had contended that TRAI was not authorised to make such a decision. The next hearing on the case has been set for October 27.

The three service associations plan to file intervention petitions in the court, drawing attention to the issues and highlighting the importance of TRAIs arbitrating functions.

While the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) plans to file its petition this week itself, the Indian Paging Services Association (IPSA) and Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO) expect to do it over the next month.

T V Ramachandran, COAIs executive vice-chairman, told Business Standard: These are vital areas of jurisdiction. Our businesses have already been impacted in the past and we want a strong TRAI. Paging and basic telecom sources echoed this view.

DoT is of the view that since it is the licensing authority, TRAI has no right to question its decisions pertaining to the licence.

The TRAI Act, 1997, is ambiguous on this contention, say lawyers.

Under the Act, DoT is recognised as the policy maker and the telecom licensor in the country, while TRAI is vested with regulatory powers.

However, under its regulatory functions, TRAI is allowed to arbitrate disputes between operators, which is interpreted as between any of the service operators in the country and DoT. For instance, in the Nice Paging case, DoT had sought to encash Nice Pagings bank guarantees on non-payment of licence fees.

The paging operator had petitioned TRAI on DoTs move to encash its guarantees, alleging that the department had not cleared the use of certain radio frequencies. The delays in clearing these frequencies, the company contended, had affected its business plans adversely and, hence, it could not generate revenues to pay the licence fees.

In another similar case, DoT also challenged in the Delhi High Court a TRAI order passed on petitions by Fascel Ltd, the Gujarat cellular licensee, and Modi Paging. The two operators had also challenged DoTs move to encash their bank guarantees due to the non-payment of licence fees. This case comes up for hearing on November 12.