The Hindu : No interim order on cellular operators' plea: court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2003

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No interim order on cellular operators' plea: court

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 17 . The Supreme Court today declined to pass an interim order on an application filed by cellular operators' seeking stay of WLL operations in view of the Government's decision to implement a "unified access licence regime" on the ground that if implemented it would give fixed service providers such as Reliance the benefit of full mobility.

A Bench, comprising Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Justice G.P. Mathur, while refusing to pass an order on the application by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), posted the matter for final hearing during the first week of December the appeals filed by it and others against the order passed by the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal upholding the Government decision to permit basic operators to offer WLL mobile services.

When senior counsel, P. Chidambaram, appearing for the COAI, pointed out how Reliance had been favoured by grant of unified licence, the Bench said it was not proper for the Government to frustrate the petition through the new licence regime. However, the Solicitor-General, Kirit Raval, pointed out that the unified licence regime was a recommendation of the autonomous body, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and that it was perfectly in tune with the National Telecom Policy-99.

He said the cellular operators had no qualms when there was a change of policy under NTP-99 allowing them to switch over from the licence fee to revenue sharing regime under the migration package, which was hugely beneficial to them. The present change of policy may help other operators and COAI should not protest about it. The Bench then refused to pass any interim order on the application but said since the issue had many ramifications it would hear the appeal in the first week of December. Mr. Chidambaram brought to the notice of the court the recent developments after filing of their appeal challenging the TDSAT order and prayed for a direction to the Government to maintain "status quo" regarding the number and type of cellular mobile licences issued separately or along with any other type of licence.

In its application, the COAI submitted that the "unified access licence regime" was improper, incorrect, unreasonable and unfair and that the decision had been carried out with a predetermined mind and with "unseemly haste" to benefit only one set of telecom operators. It sought appropriate directions to maintain the present regime of service specific licensing in the telecom sector until a conclusive adjudication of the disputes raised in the appeal which included a determination of the Cellular Mobile Service Providers contractual, constitutional, statutory, legal and other rights of the cellular operators.

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