B S N L Vs. RELIANCE COMMUNICATION LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Whether clause 6.4.6 of the Interconnect Agreement between Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and M/s. Reliance Infocomm Limited is penal or a pre-estimate of damages is the question which arises for determination in this civil appeal

(2.) On 18th March, 1997, Reliance had entered into BSO Interconnect Agreement with Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for interconnection of their networks within their respective circles. In October, 2000, with its establishment, the BSNL took over from DoT the aforementioned BSO Agreement. In November, 2003, the BSO regime was replaced by Unified Access Services regime which granted the licence to service providers for both basic and mobile telephony services as part of a single unified licence. Reliance was allowed to operate as a Unified Access Service provider from November 14, 2003 though it was formally granted the Unified Access Service Licence on 21st September, 2004 with effect from 14th November, 2003. By an addenda dated 28th February, 2006, the agreement was formally amended with retrospective effect from 14th November, 2003. The Agreement deals with local calls, national long distance calls (NLDC) and international long distance calls (ILD). Calls of each trunk group are connected through dedicated ports and are chargeable at rates different from other trunk groups. Hence, depending on the number of calls handled by a particular port, charges are levied by BSNL on Reliance, at the rate of the existing call charges payable for that particular trunk group.

(3.) On 24th June, 2003, the DoT issued a circular specifying that Calling Line Identification (CLI) cannot be tampered with under any circumstances and also gave directions to service providers on how to prevent such tampering. By its circular dated 28th January, 2004, the above circular of DoT coupled with IUC Regulations dated 29 th October, 2003 issued by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was made effective.