TRAI in trouble

If you were planning to congratulate the government, as several newspapers did yesterday, on its decision to strengthen' the Telecom Regu...

If you were planning to congratulate the government, as several newspapers did yesterday, on its decision to strengthen8217; the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, we suggest you don8217;t. For the crux of the complicated new scheme the TRAI is to be bifurcated, but its limited powers were to be fairly absolute was that the new TRAI8217;s or the TRAI-II recommendations would now be binding on the government. That, at least, is what infotech minister Pramod Mahajan said while briefing the press on it. He said the TRAI8217;s quasi-judicial powers were to be hived off and awarded to a new dispute resolution panel, but the TRAI would be fully empowered to give its recommendations on interconnect8217; charges, on whether or not a new player is required, on tariff settings, and so on. Till now, this role of the TRAI had been successfully challenged in the country8217;s courts on various occasions.

Just a few days ago, for instance, the Delhi High Court ruled that the TRAI had no powers to regulate on interconnect8217; charges.And, in several other cases, the courts have upheld the view that the TRAI has no jurisdiction over what can loosely be called licensing issues8217;.

That8217;s why most people welcomed the new moves. But now, barely 18 hours after, Mahajan has publicly changed his position, said he briefed the press wrongly earlier, and that the government was not bound to accept the recommendations of the TRAI, even though it would be mandatory to seek them. In other words, it8217;s pretty clear that the government didn8217;t like the TRAI8217;s orders which went against the interests of bodies like DoT and MTNL, or those which, for instance, cancelled the licenses of certain private telecom players. So, it decided to cripple the TRAI.

What happens if Mahajan, as has now become the norm with this government, claims that the press has misquoted him, and that the recommendations of the TRAI-II will indeed be binding on the government? We suggest you wait for the actual ordinance to come out. The original TRAI Act, for instance, looked veryprogressive when it gave all manner of powers to the TRAI, not just in spirit but in letter. It said, in Section 11 for instance, that the TRAI could regulate revenue sharing between different service providers 8212; this is what the Delhi High Court ruled against a few days back.

Section 27 of the Act went so far as to say that no civil court could rule on any matter on which the TRAI is empowered 8212; this is clearly bad in law, but the fact is that it was there in the original Act. With this background, clearly there8217;s a strong case for being sceptical of what the government promises. Let8217;s also not forget that just last year, despite the government8217;s stated intention, the bureaucracy drafted the CVC bill in such a way that only bureaucrats were eligible for the CVC8217;s job.

Finally the message is clear: the government will appoint supposedly-independent regulators and commissions, like the Disinvestment Commission, but will not allow them to function freely. So why do industrialists, ex-judges andbureaucrats then rush like lemmings for these jobs?