Reliance Infocomm has 3 days to pay penalty

Tribunal dismisses plea on call routing issue.

The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today dismissed a Reliance Infocomm petition challenging the Rs 150-crore penalty imposed on it by the government. The company will have to pay the penalty within three days.

Following the TDSAT verdict, Reliance Infocomm counsel Mukul Rohatgi, whose request for time was rejected by the tribunal, told reporters that the company would "challenge the decision in the Supreme Court on Monday".

Company executives, however, refused to confirm Rohatgi's statement and said "future course of action would be taken only after Reliance Infocomm had examined the judgment".

Dismissing the petition, a three-member Bench consisting of Justices D P Wadhwa, Vinod Vaish and D P Sehgal said: "Having regard to all the circumstances, including the subject matter of licence, the performance of the licence provisions which have been breached, the circumstances in which the breach was committed and the consequences of the breach, putting the security of the nation in jeopardy, we do not find it a fit case to be interfered with. The petition is dismissed with cost."

Reliance Infocomm had moved the tribunal on January 19 challenging the department of telecommunication's (DoT) move to impose the penalty for "illegal routing of calls".

Reliance Infocomm counsel Harish Salve had then, while deposing before the tribunal, had said the service provider had not violated the licence norms as its usage of home country direct (HCD) service was fully recognised by the international telecom union.

On the DoT's charge that Reliance Infocomm had tampered with caller line identification (CLI) system, Salve said over 40 per cent of the calls did not have proper CLI, and was, therefore, following the government's directive on such calls, where the company was to use its own switch numbers to identify such calls.

Defending the DoT's move, Solicitor-General Goolam Vahnavati told the tribunal that no one had the authority to change an international call to a domestic call. "They have been caught and caught in knots," he said.

"The reply by the private operator established the intentions of the petitioners to continue its deceptions for as long as possible," he added.

The DoT also told the tribunal that direct dedicated links to a foreign carrier for the switched voice telephony bypassed the authorised switched routes of the international long-distance service provider, and this was illegal.

The company has so far paid Rs 294 crore to state-run BSNL and MTNL, against a demand of Rs 504 crore for violation of the interconnect usage charge (IUC) agreement.

A legal issue

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• Reliance Infocomm counsel Mukul Rohatgi, whose request for time was rejected by the tribunal, told reporters that the company would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court on Monday
• Reliance Infocomm had moved the tribunal on January 19 challenging the department of telecommunication's (DoT) move to impose the penalty for 'illegal routing of calls'