Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Announce Plans for Challenging Penalty Order from DoT

Allegedly, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, two of the biggest telecom operators in the industry denied points of interconnection (PoI) to the Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio Infocomm back in 2016 during the launch of its service. As such, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has been talking about levying a hefty penalty on both of these telecom operators. However, as per a new report from ET, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are readying themselves to challenge any penalty order from the DoT for allegedly denying Reliance Jio Infocomm points of interconnection.

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Bharti and VIL to Approach Court or TDSAT to Challenge Penalties

Right now, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are awaiting any penalty order which might come their way through DoT. Then to challenge this penalty order, both the telcos will either head to court or the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), said the sources aware of the matter. Even then, the passing of the penalty order from DoT won’t be swift since the sector regulator, Trai, is looking at the penalties to judge whether the amount is appropriate or not. A person aware of the ongoings in one of the telcos said, “The telcos will definitely challenge penalties, but we are awaiting DoT’s notice. It could be a month or two for penalty charges to finally come to us.”