Delhi HC refuses to rule on BSNL-Nokia spat

22 May 2009

The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition filed by mobile equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Network seeking a stay in the tendering process of public sector telecom firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

After BSNL submitted that the matter pertains to a tender floated by the state-run company in the Chandigarh, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata zones, a division bench ruled that Nokia Siemens should approach the appropriate high court where the jurisdiction lies.

Nokia Siemens was disqualified from the tendering process of BSNL on technical grounds and has also taken its case to the Central Vigilance Commission, the Competition Commission of India and the Department of Telecommunications alleging non-transparency and tweaking of norms by BSNL.

BSNL has floated a 93-million GSM line contract valued at Rs30,000 crore, for which the likely winners are Ericsson and Huawei Technologies. The formal announcement for successful bidders is yet to be made, and the legal dispute may disrupt BSNL's expansion plans.

The spat between Nokia Siemens and BSNL over the latter's decision to disqualify the Finnish company's offer for the GSM took a legal turn on Thursday, when NSN filed an appeal in the Delhi High Court challenging its disqualification by BSNL.

BSNL's GSM project was delayed by more than a year in 2007 when Motorola dragged the PSU to court for disqualifying its bid. The matter was later settled out of court and Motorola withdrew the case.