Telecom major Vodafone Essar has moved the Supreme Court (SC) seeking a direction to the Kerala government to give adequate police protection for constructing and operating its telecom services in the state.
A Bench headed by Justice Altamas Kabir has sought reply from the state government as to why it failed to protect its rights to establish cellular phone towers, as prayed by the company.
According to Vodafone, despite having all the requisite permissions from various authorities to establish the telephone towers, the state police authorities failed to provide protection so that it could comply with its legal obligations and duty to provide proper telecom services in the state.
The telecom giant Vodafone has challenged the Kerala high court?s judgement that its plea had dismissed on the ground that the public was entitled to stop it from establishing towers as it apprehended electro-magnetic pollution and harm to them. Besides, the high court also held that it did not have jurisdiction to give direction to the police authorities to perform their duties.
“In case the high court’s erroneous judgement was to prevail, then no infrastructural activity can take place without the objections of a citizen” being first decided by a civil court, the petition stated.
Vodafone said that its right to establish the cellular phone towers cannot be obstructed as the same flowed from Article 19(1)(g) and Article 21 of the Constitution read with the provisions of the Indian
Telegraph Act, the Trai Act and the statutory licence issued by the Central government and other related enactments.
According to the telecom major, while it had entered into leases with various owners of the premises for erection of towers, it had approached the police to prevent the public from disrupting its operations.
As police authorities had failed to stop the obstructers from acting in illegal and criminal manner, the company had moved the high court, which dismissed its plea.