Idea In Court Against Regulator's Rs 950 Crore Penalty Recommendation

New Delhi: Idea Cellular on Tuesday moved the Delhi High Court against a recommendation by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to impose penalty of Rs 950 crore on the telecom firm for allegedly not providing interconnection to Reliance Jio (RJIO), even as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said the plea was premature.

The telecom department claimed before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal that Idea's petition was not maintainable as telecom regulator TRAI had only given a 
recommendation.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for DoT, opposed maintainability of the plea, saying it was premature since no action had been taken yet on the telecom regulator's October 21, 2016 recommendation.

He said that once DoT takes a decision, only then it could be an appealable order.

The bench, thereafter, issued notice to TRAI and DoT and asked them to file affidavits on the issue of maintainability of Idea's plea before the next date of hearing on February 21. 

Idea, in its plea, has claimed that it has complied with and met the requirements of RJIO for points of interconnections (PoIs).

It has said that as of January 19 this year, it has allocated 19,175 PoIs to RJIO and contended that congestion and call failures were a consequence of RJIO's "gross underestimation" of the volume, traffic and duration of calls on its network due to its free voice calls and data offer. 

In its plea, Idea has also contended that there is inconsistency between TRAI's Interconnection Regulations and Quality of Service Regulations.

In December last year, Vodafone had challenged TRAI's recommendation to the telecom department to impose Rs 1,050 crore penalty on it on RJIO's complaint.

Vodafone had contended in its plea that TRAI did not have the power to recommend imposition of penalty and can only recommend revocation of licence for breach of licence conditions.

The matter is pending before another bench of the high court where the telecom department and the regulator have contended that the plea was not maintainable.

The telecom regulator had recommended imposition of Rs 50 crore penalty per circle on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, which came to Rs 1,050 crore each on the first two for their 21 circles and Rs 950 crore on the third for 19 circles.

The regulatory authority was of the view that denial of interconnection by existing operators like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone, to RJIO "appears to be with the ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer".