Reliance Infocomm today paid Rs 150 crore as penalty to the government for illegally routing international incoming calls as local calls within two days of TDSAT rejecting the operator's petition challenging the levy.Reliance, however, has kept its legal options open while paying the penalty. Immediately after TDSAT rejected its plea on Friday, company counsel Mukul Rohatagi had said: "We will challenge this in the Supreme Court on Monday."The company officials maintained till afternoon that a decision on whether to move court was still not taken. The penalty was paid to the department of telecom (DoT) by the company officials.Taking a strong note of Reliance's method of routing international calls as local ones, TDSAT had said: "The method Reliance Infocomm employed to camouflage an international call was certainly unprincipled and, if we may say so, unscrupulous."Upholding the contention of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati, who appeared for DoT, TDSAT said camouflaging international calls by Reliance Infocomm was "in total breach of the licence conditions."
