In continuation of the subscriber re-verification issue, the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was well within its jurisdiction to impose penalties on operators in this regard.
The operators under the scanner in this regard include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Dishnet Wireless (Aircel), Reliance Telecom, Idea Cellular and Bharti Hexacom.
Prior to this, the Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cell of DoT had imposed a penalty on the operators for failing to re-verify the details of the connections provided in various circles.
The operators had challenged this penalty and had approached TDSAT to waive off the same. The operators are not in favor of undertaking re-verification of their entire pre-paid subscriber base and have termed the circular issued by government as one issued ?in a casual manner”.
According to them, DoT extended the directive issued in the circle of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to Assam and North East Service Areas. Since, these guidelines were initially formulated by keeping in mind the peculiar conditions existing in J&K, the same cannot be applicable to the areas of North East. Thus, a proper modification of this directive should be done before issuing it.
The operators believe that the entire process may result into a loss of around 20 million subscribers in the northeastern region.
Meanwhile, DoT has informed TDSAT that the operators being examined with regard to this issue have still not paid the required penalty amounts.
