Private telecom operators on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging the telecom tribunal?s verdict that upheld state-owned BSNL?s decision to levy higher carrier charges than the rates decided by the telecom regulator.
Carriage charges are collected by BSNL to forward calls originating from private cellular networks to the PSU.
The petitions filed by Cellular Operators Association of India and Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India challenged the TDSAT?s judgement that set aside Trai?s directions to have a uniform carriage charge of 20 paise for intra-circle calls. Trai had also prescribed ceiling of Rs 0.65 per minute for carriage charges for long distance calls.
A bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia directed the operators to file within three weeks statements of their respective liabilities on account of carriage charges between November 2005 and March 2009.
According to operators, TDSAT has set aside two Trai communications of May 17, 2006 to the PSU and COAI and had ?wrongly allowed BSNL to levy distance-based carriage charges on the telecom operators instead of a uniform carriage charge of 20 paisa per minute in case of intra-circle.?