Relief for RCom, Tata Tele as licences not to be scrapped

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Relief for RCom, Tata Tele as licences not to be scrapped

This article was posted on Oct 21, 2013 and is filed under Market News

DoT accepts legal counsel that their dual technology licences given before Jan 2008 were not covered by last year’s SC quashing order

n a major relief to the dual technology (those offering services on both the GSM and CDMA platform) telecom licence holders, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications (RCom), the department of telecommunications (DoT) has decided their licences will not be scrapped.

The decision is based on the legal advice of senior advocate P P Rao, consulted by DoT on the matter. This was after various groups, including industry body Assocham, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), and Idea Cellular managing director Himanshu Kapania, insisted the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) order in February 2012 that cancelled 2G licences, should lead to quashing of 141 Unified Access Service (UAS) licences, instead of only 122.

LINE CLEARED

SEP 2007: Telcos, including new entrants like Uninor, Loop Telecom, Etisalat DB, Videocon, STel, SSTL, apply for 2G licences
CDMA player Tata Tele seeks GSM permit on existing licences
JAN 2008: DoT issues two press releases – one allowing new entrants and the second allowing dual-technology players to offer GSM services
FEB 2012: Supreme Court quashes 122 licences issued to private companies on or before January 10, 2008
Various groups say 141 licences, including the 19 of Tata Tele, ought to have been cancelled
COAI says 163, including RCom’s 22 licences, should be scrapped
DoT seeks legal opinion
JUN 15, 2013: Senior advocate P P Rao says in a legal opinion that the SC order does not include quashing of licences of dual-technology players
JULY 8, 2013: Competent authority accepts PP Rao’s opinion

Minister of communications and information techno,ogy Kapil Sibal has accepted Rao’s opinion. According to a recent communication, DoT will soon inform all the groups about it.

For more visit: Business Standard

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