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The Supreme Court today asked the department of telecommunications not to take any “coercive action” against the country’s largest mobile phone company by subscriber base, Airtel, on its 3G services, till Thursday.
The apex court was hearing Bharti Airtel’s plea on the DoT's order asking the Sunil Mittal-led company to shut 3G services within 24 hours in circles where it did not have required licences.
Last week, the Delhi HC had cancelled an earlier order of the court that had given a stay on the imposition of a notice by DoT asking the firm to stop 3G services in circles where it did not have required licences. Airtel had appealed against the high court’s move. The Delhi HC was acting on a plea by Reliance Communications. Senior counsel A M Singhvi, representing Bharti Airtel, said the high court bar on its operation of 3G was uncalled for.
The only basis for the prohibition was a report given by a committee in the telecom department. He described the two years of legal proceedings in TDSAT and the high court and justified the company’s 3G operations through agreements with those service providers which operated from areas where Airtel held no licences. This benefited the consumers, the counsel said.
Reliance Communications (RCom) counsel Mukul Rohtagi argued that Bharti Airtel was operating illegally in several circles. It was “subletting” the services with illegal tie-ups, he argued, and presented a sample 3G SIM card which Aircel was selling in Kolkota without authority. Roaming in 2G was unobjectionable, but illegally selling 3G services affects other legitimate operators, he argued.
He said Reliance had lost Rs 5,000 crore because of the illegal operations.
The government also supported the case of Reliance and its counsel said that the department of telecom had told Bharti Airtel to stop 3G operations. But still it continued, counsel said.
Earlier, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had asked Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular to end the intra-circle (ICT) 3G roaming pacts, besides imposing penalties on each of the telcos. While Bharti Airtel was slapped with a penalty of Rs 350 crore, penalty for Vodafone India was Rs 550 crore and Rs 300 crore on Idea Cellular for alleged violation of licence norms. With today's SC order, the companies will be able to continue with the 3G ICR pacts till April 11.
The three companies have been using the ICR agreements to offer 3G services in the circles where they do not have the required licences and spectrum. Such a pact was necessary as no operator had pan-India 3G spectrum. While Bharti Airtel has 3G spectrum in 13 circles, Vodafone India has in nine and Idea has in 11 service areas.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular together have about 12 million 3G subscribers in India. Of these, Bharti Airtel has 6.8 million 3G subscribers (5.2 million active), Idea Cellular has 2.8 million and Vodafone India has 2.5 million 3G customers.
According to industry estimates, imposition of the DoT order would impact about 30 per cent of the total 3G subscribers of the three telcos.
