Telenor, Sistema to seek legal avenues to protect their Indian operations

Leading foreign telecom giants -Telenor of Norway and Sistema of Russia - today asserted that they would seek legal measures to protect their investments in Indian operations with one saying it would consider "alternative" plans to quit India.

Telenor is a majority stakeholder in Uninor joint venture with Unitech while Sistema in Sistema-Shyam telecom offers telecom services under MTS brand.

"Telenor Group wants to be clear that the Uninor operations are continuing. Our intention is to fight to protect our lawful investments in the country. We are looking to the government to arrive at a fair solution. We expect that the intention remains of bringing new competition to India," Telenor Group said in a statement.

Sistema claims to have invested over $2.5 billion (about Rs12,500 crore) and Telenor has exposure of over Rs14,000 crore in Indian services.

Both Uninor's 22 and Sistema-Shyam's 21 licences stand cancelled under yesterday's Supreme Court judgement.

Voicing similar sentiments, Russian conglomerate Sistema said "it will contest this order by pursuing all available legal remedies. In the meantime, Indian operations will remain business as usual."

The company claims to have a subscriber base of over 15 million and employs over 3,500.