Telecom tribunal got the law wrong, says GSM lobby

In a strong attack on the telecom tribunal, Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) has argued in its petition to the Delhi High Court that the tribunal has erred in law and on facts in ignoring the three cardinal principles of grant of interim injunction.

It also says that the TDSAT has failed to appreciate that every action of the Department of Telecom (DoT) in the present matter smacks of legal malafide having inevitable effect of granting huge largesse of crores of rupees to CDMA operators.

It also says that the tribunal ought to have passed a speaking order for not granting interim relief which would have allowed the petitioner to exercise its statutory right to appeal.

The petition further points out that the tribunal failed to appreciate that the non-grant of interim order would lead to creation of third party rights which would lead to irreversible damage to them who have been waiting in the queue patiently for months and years.

The case filed by the COAI will be heard on Monday. The COAI had earlier gone to the telecom tribunal TDSAT to seek stay on a government order which allowed operators to get both GSM as well as CDMA spectrum within the same licence and operate both the services.

However, the TDSAT, in its last hearing, refused to give a stay to the COAI and also lifted the voluntary ban imposed by the government in which it had given an undertaking to the tribunal that no fresh spectrum would be allocated to any operator pending the case.

Meanwhile, GSM mobile operators have asked the government to seek afresh the views of telecom regulator Trai on spectrum allocation norms and suspend distribution of frequency till such time.

Meeting this condition means that no new GSM operator will be issued LoIs and licences, and existing GSM operators will have no new competition.

But these are some of the conditions that the GSM lobby wants the Department of Telecom (DoT) to meet to ease the tension arising out of new formula for apportioning spectrum and permission to use dual technology.

On behalf of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Akhil Gupta of Bharti Airtel has been deputed to negotiate with the government.

The first meeting between Gupta and Telecom Secretary DS Mathur was held last week, according to a note by Mathur.