TDSAT provides breather in 3G roaming pacts till 3 January
24 Dec 2011
The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on Saturday asked the government not to take any "coercive" action to ban 3G roaming agreements, providing a temporary respite to operators who had appealed against order banning 3G roaming pacts.
TDSAT's intervention gives a breather to the operators who had entered into 3G roaming pacts, till the case comes up for hearing again on
3 January 2012.
The tribunal also asked the operators to submit details of 3G roaming agreements for its consideration.
On Friday, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the country's licensor, had asked the telecom operators to terminate 3G pacts by Saturday 3:00 pm, after it took a decision on Thursday to declare that the 3G roaming pacts were illegal.
The DoT had termed that the 3G roaming agreements between operators as a violation of existing telecom regulations and therefore had to be discontinued, while also mulling penalties on operators for entering into 3G roaming services.
The licensor had sought a legal opinion on the roaming agreements and both the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and law ministry had supported its view. The communications and IT Minister, Kapil Sibal, had also said that the operators would not be allowed to offer the services under existing laws.
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