COAI, Auspi made party to BSNL plea against Trai regulation

GSM operators' lobby COAI and CDMA players' group AUSPI today requested the sectoral tribunal TDSAT to make them party to the petition filed by BSNL challenging TRAI's regulation on reducing interconnect usage (IUC) charges.

During the proceedings, counsels of COAI and AUSPI requested TDSAT to implead them in the petition filed by BSNL. Their prayer was accepted by the TDSAT bench headed by its Chairman, Justice Arun Kumar, who expressed displeasure on the state-run firm for not making the private operators a party.

"They (private operators) are also likely to be affected by any possible interim order of this court. You should serve them a copy," he said before adjourning the matter to April 2 for next hearing.

On this, Additional Solicitor General Parag Tripathi appearing for BSNL submitted that it would be done by tomorrow.

The judge also suggested the telcos to think for a mutual interim order on this issue as he was expecting a prolonged litigation on the matter.

Termination charges are paid by one operator to another on whose network the call ends.

In its regulation on March 9, TRAI reduced termination charge for all types of domestic calls like fixed to fixed, fixed to mobile, mobile to fixed and mobile to mobile to 20 paise per minute from 30 paise per minute.