TDSAT asks Vodafone to pay half of the Rs 500 million penalty in the bulk connections case

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has asked Vodafone Essar to deposit half of the Rs 500 million penalty imposed on it by the Department of Telecommunications(DoT), pertaining to the case of issuing bulk SIM cards without proper verification.

In an interim order, TDSAT said that the company has prima facie violated licence conditions when it issued bulk SIM cards to Matrix Cellular Services.

The TDSAT bench also rejected Vodafone Essar?s contention that it was unaware of the end users of the 10,000 connections issued to Matrix Cellular.

In 2003, Vodafone (then Hutch) had inked an agreement with Matrix Cellular, wherein it had issued 10,000 SIM cards for its own use.

Thereafter, post an enquiry, DoT?s Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cell found that some numbers issued to Matrix by Vodafone Essar were further rented out by the operator.

So, DoT passed an order on October 18, 2011, imposing a penalty of Rs 500 million on Vodafone Essar.