The Delhi High Court yesterday stayed proceedings of a radio paging case in Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the plea of the department of telecommunications (DoT) that the regulator had no jurisdiction to hear disputes between the telecom licensor (DoT itself) and service providers.
A division bench comprising Justice Mahinder Narain and S K Mahajan, while admitting the appeal filed by DoT on the jurisdictional powers of TRAI stayed further proceedings before the regulator in the dispute between the department and Netherland India Communication Enterprise (NICE) Pvt Ltd.
The court order restraining TRAI from hearing cases relating to licensing issues comes as shot in the arm for DoT. DoT has contended in the past that the regulator did not have jurisdiction over licensing issues. Top DoT officials said yesterday the department would appeal to the high court on similar cases in cellular services. In its petition DoT had said that TRAI was created to regulate telecom services in the country and for matters connected therewith and not to settle disputes between DoT and service providers.
NICE had moved TRAI against DoTs refusal to allow it to start paging services in Nagpur. The departments reluctance was because the company had not paid licence fees instalments. The company said it did not pay the fees because DoT had not provided it wireless and infrastructure clearances crucial for starting services.
The High Court bench after hearing DoT counsel Rakesh Tiku for three days, said that prima facie TRAI has no jurisdiction in respect of any dispute between the licensor and service provider.
Tiku had contended that as the licence agreement between DoT and NICE for providing radio paging services had an arbitration clause, TRAI had no jurisdiction to entertain the case filed by the company against the department in TRAI relating to denial of permission to operate the radio paging service.
The counsel said TRAI without any lawful authority was passing orders from time to time in the case, where revenue running into hundreds of crores of rupees is involved.
The case was adjourned for further hearing on October 27. Tiku contended that the orders of TRAI caused tremendous prejudice to DoT and seriously affected their planning and added that this also resulted in delay in providing services to the consumers.
