The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the telecom tribunal?s decision that allowed state-owned BSNL to levy charges of around Rs 800 crore on Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communion (formerly Infocom) for alleged wrongful routing of calls. The companies have challenged TDSAT?s order that came pursuant to the apex court?s earlier judgment of April 2008 that held that Tata Teleservices (TTSL) ?Walky? and Reliance Communication?s ?Unlimited Cordless? are limited mobile phones, and hence they are liable to pay ADC to BSNL for interconnection.
The court had then ruled that ?Unlimited Cordless? and ?Walky? services offered by the two companies were equivalent to wireless services and hence, the telcos were bound to pay BSNL a combined total of Rs 700 crore towards the ADC levy. RComm?s share then was about Rs 400 crore and TTSL?s Rs 300 crore.
According to sources, the companies have already paid 75% of the demand amount. Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal?s (TDSAT) again on April 15, this year had upheld the demand raised by BSNL, which according to companies, is not a demand for ADC but a penalty and the same is in complete violation of the Interconnect Agreement. The tribunal had allowed BSNL to raise bills not only for the period between November 14, 2004 to August 26, 2005 but even after August 26, 2005 to February 28, 2006.
A Bench headed by Justice SH Kapadia while refusing to stay the TDSAT judgment asked RCom to give details of calls originating from BSNL and terminating in the company?s fixed/mobile network.
The companies said that BSNL was entitled to receive Access Deficit Charge (ADC) for the ?Walky? or ?Unlimited Cordless? calls and not the penalty charges for alleged wrong routing or otherwise. The firms submitted that TDSAT being a technical authority took a an erroneous view in holding that the methodology adopted by BSNL to calculate the demanded amount could be obtained by multiplying the number of calls with the demand amount.
TDSAT failed to appreciate that all the calls were not liable to be charged for ADC since there were calls from fixed numbers to fixed numbers having no ADC, RComm said in its petition.
According to the petition, the tribunal judgment is in violation of earlier judgments which had clearly held that ADC and IUC Regulations as per the agreement are two different issues and ADC has nothing to do with IUC regime.