Airtel, Vodafone Idea Penalty Case: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on Tuesday asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to stay till the next date the encashment of bank guarantees in the penalty cases of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. the hearing.
A bench headed by Justice Shiv Kirti Singh fixed the matter for hearing on October 26 and said, “No encashment of bank guarantee will be done till the next date (of hearing).”
DoT had asked companies to pay the fine by October 21.
The direction comes after Airtel and Vodafone Idea challenged the DoT’s demand notices. ₹3,050 crore cumulative penalty in points of interconnect matter.
DoT imposed fine ₹2,000 crore more on Vodafone Idea ₹1,050 crore on Airtel based on the recommendation of telecom regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) five years ago, for violating norms by denying Reliance Jio Point of Interconnect (POI) in 2016.
PoI is required to interconnect the networks of telecom operators.
Vodafone Idea’s lawyers argued that TRAI recommended imposition of penalty on the basis of just one day’s reading of quality of service data and even not averaging it over a period of 30 days as per norms.
In October 2016, TRAI had recommended imposing a total fine of ₹3,050 crore on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea (now merged) for allegedly denying inter-connectivity to Reliance Jio.
The regulator had at that time refused to recommend cancellation of their telecom licences, saying it could cause a lot of inconvenience to the consumers.
TRAI’s recommendation came on the complaint of Reliance Jio that more than 75 per cent of calls on its network were failing as the incumbents were not issuing sufficient number of POIs.
(with inputs from PTI)
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