RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED Vs. BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY reason of this application, the petitioner has inter -alia prayed for amendment of the petition. The petitioner is an UASL licensee, the licence having been granted by the Department of Telecommunication in terms of Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (The 1885 Act).

(2.) THE parties herein entered into an Interconnection agreement. An Addenda to the said agreement was inserted on or about 28.02.2006 with retrospective effect from 14.11.2003.

(3.) THE petitioner has filed the petition for setting aside the bills dated 15.10.2004 and 21.3.2005 as also disconnection notices dated 05.3.2008 and 02.02.2009. The said bills were issued inter -alia on the premise that the petitioner has wrongly routed its international calls as local calls. The matter was heard by this Tribunal. By a judgment and order dated 24.5.2010, the said bills were set aside, directing: - For the foregoing reasons, we are also of the opinion that other contentions raised by the parties hereto need not be gone into. All contentions, save and except, what has been found by us heretobefore shall remain open. The impugned demand in our opinion being not sustainable is set aside accordingly. However, we are of the opinion that the amount deposited by the petitioner need not be directed to be refunded. This order is being passed afresh because no prayer in this behalf has been made before us. Secondly because the petitioner filed the aforementioned Misc. Pe tition which was not maintainable and therefore the petitioner did not deposit any amount and thirdly because in the event it would be able to show that it has not committed any breach of the interconnection agreement it would be entitled to refund of the deposited amount with interest. Even otherwise, when a demand is made, subject to just exceptions, ordinarily the operators under the interconnection agreement are bound to deposit 50% of the demanded amount besides the admitted amount. Furthermore, we have set aside the demand on the ground of noncompliance of the principle of natural justice and, therefore, we are of the opinion that a conditional order may be passed in a case of this nature. The respondent shall be given liberty to the petitioner to show that before disconnecting the number, all actions were taken strictly in terms of the circular letter of the DoT dated 24.6.2003 and its case otherwise comes within the purview of the circular letter issued by the respondent. In the event any occasion arises therefor, the petitioner may ask the respondent to supply the CDRs for the concerned period which may be complied with. This petition is allowed in part and with the aforementioned observations and directions.