DoT may encash Rs 129 cr JT guarantee

NEW DELHI, FEB 16: The Delhi High Court has paved the way for Department of Telecommunications to encash the bank guarantees of JT Mobile...

NEW DELHI, FEB 16: The Delhi High Court has paved the way for Department of Telecommunications to encash the bank guarantees of JT Mobile to the tune of Rs 129 crore for Andhra Pradesh circle and Rs 12 crore of paging service provider DSS Mobile.

The department of telecommunications DoT is expected to issue orders for encashment of bank guarantees of the two defaulters within the next two days. This follows a decision of a division bench of the Delhi High Court, to dismiss the DSS plea, while a single judge bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari passed orders on JT Mobile8217;s case. The hands of the DoT have also been strengthened with the Court observing that all the details related to the new telecom policy and all other discussions of the Group on Telecom GoT are irrelevant over the issue of encashment of the bank guarantee.DoT recovered arrears of Rs 31.44 crore from various cellular operators and was contemplating actions against all those who have not acted on their letter in this regard. Centralgovernment counsel Rakesh Tikku submitted before a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Devinder Gupta and Justice K S Gupta that eight cellular operators have responded to their letters for payment of arrears by February 15.

He submitted that still more than Rs 700 crore of arrears were pending with cellular operators. 8220;Actions, including suspension of licences, were being contemplated against those who have not complied with the directions of the letters,8221; he added. Senior counsel Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for cellular operators, submitted that the operators are having a dialogue with the government and a draft policy was being formulated. He said the matter may take nearly 6 to 8 weeks before the final picture emerges and sought an adjournment. The bench adjourned the case to May 17 for further hearing.The court was hearing a public interest petition filed by advocate BL Wadehra seeking a CBI enquiry into alleged financial irregularities to the tune of Rs. 1100 crore in allotment oflicences to cellular phone operators. The petitioner wanted actions against officials for their failure to recover outstanding licence fee from licensees of cellular mobile telephone services in the circles despite reinforced safeguards in the licence agreements and not claiming interest of Rs 50.76 crore from the defaulters. Wadehra alleged that the DoT while allotting licences to cellular operators failed to devise a basic standard for charging licence fee resulting in a net loss of about Rs 1100 crore to the department. The authorities also gave undue benefit of Rs 483 crore to operators by not revising the licence fee due to revision of the air-time charges to R. 1.40 per ten seconds from Rs 1.10. The private telecom service provider industry split vertically on Monday with as many as 11 companies paying up the required 20 5 of the outstanding licence fee, the deadline set by communications minister. Bharti Cellular, Bharti Telenet and Modi Telstra, however, issued press releases stating that they hadmade the payments quot;under protestquot;.