The reason for this is that, following the Delhi High Court's judgment in an earlier case, the DoT was supposed to clearly specify what the TRAI's role and jurisdiction was, and whether it could decide on cases relating to licence fee, encashment of bank guarantees, etc.

As a result of the DoT refusing to give a written submission on the interpretation of the TRAI's jurisdiction, it is expected that all hearings at the TRAI are likely to come to a standstill and decisions for companies would be pending for a while more.

Sources in the DoT defend their decision not to file a written interpretation of the TRAI'sjurisdiction on the grounds that this had to be ascertained from the TRAI Act of 1997, ``and in case of a difference in opinion, only a court of law could interpret it.''

Sources in the industry on the other hand claim that the feud between the DoT and the TRAI had led the industry to bleed to such an extent that hardly any service provider - cellular, basic or paging, was able to keep up with their licence fee commitments and be the time the judgment is finally announced by the High Court, all companies would be defaulters without any scope for filing in either the TRAI or a court of law, making them all defaulters by the end of December.