Breather for Airtel, Vodafone, Idea on fine for denying connectivity to Jio

New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will examine past rulings of the Supreme Court and the Competition Commission of India while deciding on the regulator’s controversial recommendation to levy penalties of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for allegedly denying Reliance Jio Infocomm adequate points of interconnection.

“The Supreme Court and Competition Commission of India judgments have to be examined whether they have any bearing on the penalty issue,” a senior official said.

The official was speaking after a meeting of the Digital Communications Commission (DCC), formerly Telecom Commission, an inter-departmental panel which is the highest decision-making body of the government for the telecom sector. It is led by the telecom secretary.


The careful approach of the DoT follows conflicting views of two departmental committees which were formed on the matter. A four-member group suggested that the Rs 3,050 crore levy on telcos should be avoided while the other three-member panel said it must be imposed.

The issue has been hanging fire since October 2016 when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) suggested imposition of penalties on India’s older operators for allegedly violating licence conditions by not providing enough points of interconnection (PoI) to billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio, which led to severe call failures on the new entrant’s network, hurting quality of services.

Trai recommended fines of Rs 1,050 crore each on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India for breaches in 21 licensed service areas (LSAs) while Idea Cellular was penalised Rs 950 crore for alleged violations in 19 LSAs. Vodafone and Idea have since merged their operations.

All three telcos have previously denied any wrong-doing. Vodafone India has challenged the Trai recommendation in the Delhi High Court.

Jio started services in September 2016, but was testing out its services for several months prior to that.

DoT and Trai have already sparred over the Trai’s recommendations. The department in February 2017 had sought clarifications from the Trai on about 12 points including the basis of which the penalty amount was calculated and the provision in the law that allowed it to do so. Trai had offered a point-by-point rebuttal, while sticking to its stance.

The matter will be again taken up at a later date when all members of the DCC are available, the official said. “Full committee was not present today (Thursday), so the matter will be taken up when full commission members will be available.”

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) secretary Ramesh Abhishek and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) secretary Ajay Prakash Shawney were not present in Thursday’s crucial deliberations on issues including revival of state-owned telcos, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), connectivity in uncovered villages and BharatNet’s operations and maintenance.

The high-powered committee has decided to put as many as 20 fibre assets or pairs on auction for private entities for a 20-year lease term after retaining four, in the 250,000 km of optic fibre cable (OFC) deployed under the ambitious BharatNet-I programme.