TDSAT notice to Airtel on Asergis plaint
04 Oct 2012
The Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today issued a notice to Bharti Airtel on a petition filed by Asergis Telecom Services alleging that India's leading private telecom operator had blocked its toll free Intelligent Network (INservices) number leased from Tata Teleservices.
A TDSAT bench headed by its chairman Justice S B Sinha asked Bharti Airtel to file a short reply by Tuesday to Asergis's allegations.
Asergis, a fully owned subsidiary of UK-based Asergis Global Services, has been given two days after that to file its rejoinder to the reply. The tribunal has directed listing of the matter for hearing on Friday next week.
Asergis has alleged that Airtel is blocking its subscribers from accessing its toll-free numbers on the ground that the calls were terminating outside India.
It has requested the tribunal to declare Airtel's action as "illegal and in breach of the UASL (Unified access Service Licence)", and to restrain it "from withdrawing access to the inter connection between Airtel and Tata Teleservices" of its IN numbers.
Asergis has leased a toll-free numbers of 1800 series from Tata Teleservices for audio conferencing with its customers.