NEW DELHI, Dec 30: Telecom tribunal TDSAT kept up the momentum among quasi-judicial bodies in 2012 despite lack of resources as it passed a range of judgements aimed at protecting consumer interest.
It also decided on cases involving some of the world’s biggest corporations.
The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) pronounced 463 judgements in 2012 compared with 356 the previous year even though it was without full strength in the year gone by.
TDSAT has a sanctioned strength of three people, including its chairman. However, the position of Member, Technical has been lying vacant since July 2011. In November this year, its chairman retired, leaving just one member who can only pass interim orders.
Besides TDSAT, other quasi-judicial bodies such as the Competition Appellate Tribunal, Company Law Board and the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity remained in the limelight as they dealt with anti-competitive practises, corporate disputes and crucial issues in the energy sector.
In one of the most important consumer-friendly rulings, the TDSAT directed telecom operators to comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s guidelines on Value- Added Services (VAS) that requires them to take confirmation from their subscribers through SMS, e-mail, fax or in writing within 24 hours of activation of VAS.
It also gave a go-ahead to the Trai’s roadmap of digitalisation of cable TV and ensured customers right to select a combination of 100 free-to-air channels. Apart from that it also approved Trai’s revenue sharing mechanism between the Local/Area cable operator and the Multi-System Operators.
However, it set aside restrictions put on MSOs on placement fee, number of channels and carriage fee by Trai. It was of the view that MSOs can charge placement fee from broadcasters for keeping their channels in a particular slot and Trai’s regulation to curb it was “bad in law”.
Giving liberty to the consumers, TDSAT on July 17 set aside Trai’s circular limiting the number of SMSes to 200 per day per SIM.
The most high-profile case that the TDSAT decided on this year was the dispute between US-based chip maker Qualcomm and the central government which had successfully bid for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum in four circles for Rs 4,900 crore.
On March 2, TDSAT had directed the Department of Telecom (DoT) to grant licence to Qualcomm after removing technical hurdles. However, the San Diego headquartered firm had to approach TDSAT again after the DoT shortened the time limit for rolling out broadband services on account of delay.
Setting aside DoT’s order on October 17, TDSAT said there was no delay by Qualcomm and there was no breach of conditions by it. (PTI)
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