The Delhi High Court has refused to interfere with TRAI’s recommendation to impose a penalty of Rs. Rs 1050 crore to two Vodafone companies for allegedly denying interconnectivity to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) under an Interconnection Agreement executed between them.
The high court noted that the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommendation of 21 October 2016, which has been challenged here, is also being challenged before the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appeal Court (TDSAT), and the courts are bodies of experts constituted by virtue of the law to decide the controversies that arise by virtue of said statute.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, in their ruling on May 24, said that the TDSAT has been empowered to deal with all disputes arising under the TRAI Act.
The central government had issued an order on September 29, 2021 imposing a sanction on the petitioning companies for violating the provisions of the license agreement and the quality of service (QOS) standards of the basic telephone service (wired) and the service of cellular mobile telephony. , 2009.
“After the court finds that the order dated September 29, 2021 issued by Respondent #2 (government) is not tenable in law, then automatically the recommendation dated October 21, 2016 that challenged in this judicial remedy would be to be set aside.
“This court finds considerable force in the arguments made by the defendants’ lead counsel that any observations made by this court in the instant writ petitions will have an adverse impact on the Telecom Petitions that have been filed with the TDSAT.” said the court. .
The high court dismissed the petitions presented by Vodafone Mobile Services and Vodafone Idea and made it clear that it has not made any observations on the merits of the case.
“It is always open for the court to decide the issue on the merits, including the October 21, 2016 recommendation that is challenged in these petitions,” he said.
He also noted that the TDSAT has already suspended the September 2021 order.
On September 21, 2016, TRAI issued a recommendation stating that the petitioners were at fault for not providing the Point of Interconnection (POI) to RJIL, and recommended the imposition of a fine of Rs. Rs 50 crore per circle for 21 Licensed Service Areas (LSAs) where POI congestion exceeded the permitted limit of 0.5 per cent.
The petitioners said that they petitioned TRAI to withdraw the recommendation, but to no avail, after which they transferred to the higher court.
Vodafone has challenged the recommendation made by TRAI to the Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications for criminal action, alleging that the recommendation was contrary to the law and deserved to be annulled.
TRAI opposed the petitions, saying they are premature at this stage and cannot be upheld.