The Indian law ministry has approved the telecom department to take action over licence violations by telecom companies. The approval from the law ministry could find leading telecom companies such as Bharti, Vodafone and Idea facing major trouble. These companies had entered into bilateral roaming agreements in areas where they did not have 3G permits. The Additional Solicitor General has however said that the government cannot impose financial penalties on mobile phone companies for entering into 3G roaming agreements and the telecom department will seek clarity from the Additional Solicitor General regarding this.
As per current rules, the highest penalty for license violation is INR 500 mn per circle. The telecom department has said that its first step will be to stop the services being illegally provided. On a query from the department, the Additional Solicitor General responded saying that it was well within the rights of the telecom department to take the amounts earned by these companies through providing 3G services for which they did not have proper authorization or license.
Earlier, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal had given a split judgement on this issue which had prompted the telecom department to seek advice from the law ministry.
Source: TelecomLead

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