Telcos move TDSAT against DoT order on verification

Telecom service providers have approached the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) seeking a stay on the penalty imposed by the government for not completing verification of existing prepaid connections in the North-East, including Assam.

The operators have challenged the penalty imposed by the department of telecommunications' (DoT) telecom enforcement resource and monitoring (TERM) cell and requested that it be set aside.

The operators - Dishnet Wireless, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular - have also questioned the circular issued by DoT to re-verify their existing prepaid connections.

The Cellular Operators Association of India had already approached the TDSAT last week on this issue. On 13 January TDSAT asked the operators to file their individual petitions along with details.

Operators have termed the circular issued by government for the re-verification of their existing subscriber "without any application of mind" and issued "in a totally casual manner".

According to them, DoT has simply extended the guidelines of the Jammu & Kashmir service area to Assam and the North-East service areas.

COAI has said that under the circular, certificates issued by a village panchayat head or its equivalent authority and caste and domicile certificates with photograph issued by state governments were not included in the list of acceptable proof.