DCC Approves Rs 3,050 Cr Penalty on Airtel, Voda Idea; Telcos Plan Legal Recourse

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) The Digital Communications Commission (DCC), the telecom department's apex decision-making body, on Wednesday approved imposing a cumulative penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for not providing points of interconnection to Reliance Jio.

The incumbent telecom operators said they are exploring all options, including legal recourse, to protect their interest.

"DCC has accepted Trai recommendation on penalty on Airtel, Vodafone Idea. It will send same recommendation to competent authority in government for their decision," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters.

In October 2016, Trai had recommended imposing a total penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea (now merged) for allegedly denying inter-connectivity to Reliance Jio.

The penalty on Airtel and Vodafone works out to be about Rs 1,050 crore each. In case of Idea, it comes to about Rs 950 crore. Since Vodafone and Idea have now merged their businesses, the new entity Vodafone Idea will have to bear their penalty burden.

"Upon receipt of the formal communication intimating the levy of penalty, we will approach the appropriate forum. We have complete faith in the judicial process and the law of the land," an Airtel spokesperson said.

The spokesperson argued that the requested points of interconnect were provided within the prescribed time limits and were more than the numbers requested for.

"All these facts were presented to the authorities. It is, therefore, disheartening that those facts have not been considered while taking this arbitrary decision of imposing the penalty," the spokesperson said.

Trai's recommendation had come on a complaint by Reliance Jio that over 75 per cent of calls on its network were failing as incumbents were not releasing sufficient number of points of interconnection (PoIs).

Vodafone Idea, in a statement, said the issue pertaining to points of interconnection has been examined by the DoT, various parliamentary and judicial authorities with no case for any default established.

"From media reports its appears that even the DoT committee examining the TRAI recommendations was not unanimous and in fact at least 4 committee members out of 7 had differing views on the subject.

"Further, the jurisdiction to decide any interconnection dispute between two service providers lies exclusively with TDSAT," the statement said.

It added that the Supreme Court, in a judgment dated December 5, 2018, clearly stated that proceedings under the Trai Act have not been concluded due to absence of findings on some key aspects.

"As India's leading telecom service provider, we abide by stringent norms of governance and compliance with all applicable laws and regulation while conducting our business in an ethical and conscientious manner. We will explore all options, including seeking legal recourse to protect our interests," the statement said.

The DCC had last month approved imposing penalty on Airtel and Vodafone Idea. However, before imposing the penalty, the commission decided to seek Trai's views on revising the Rs 3,050 crore suggested penalty, citing the "present financial health of the sector".

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, however, maintained its stand saying it is not in a position to modify its previously recommended penalty on the operators as it is bound by the provisions of the Trai Act.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)