AG refutes telcos' plea on call drops

The talks suggested by the Supreme Court to solve the deadlock between the department of telecommunications and private telecom operators over call drops having failed. The Attorney General on Thursday began arguments justifying the policy of charging Re one for three call drops. Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi assailed the telcos alleging that they have formed a cartel to resist a consumer-oriented policy.

The investment made by them was not on par with the revenue generated. Their revenue was Rs 250 crore per day. The government is not insisting on ploughing back the revenue to improve infrastructure; but the penalty for causing inconvenience to the consumers is the least they must comply with,counsel told a bench conmprising Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice R F Nariman.

The Delhi high court had earlier upheld theorder of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) imposing the penalty.The telcos like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone under the umbrella of Cellular Operators Association of India and Association of Unified Telecom ServiceProviders of India have appealed against it.

According to them, call drops arenot their fault and there are several factors beyond their control which cause thefault for which they should not be penalized. The Attorney General took the whole day torebut the arguments of the telecos point by point, citing technical data andcomparative laws in foreign countries.

Rohtagi said that the telcos were takingexamples from difficult regions to show that the fault was not theirs. Theyshould consider the national average. For instance, there are places wherethere are jammers installed for security reasons, but that is not the caseeverywhere.

Refuting the contention of the telcos thatthey cannot technically track the sourceof the fault, counsel said that there are equipment which can do this but theservice providers are not interested in revealing the facts.

The Attorney General also opposed the argumentof the telcos that shortage of spectrum contributed to the call drops andasserted that enough spectrum isavailable. Only the telcos must attempt to reach higher efficiency. The arguments will continue next week.