DoT Not Acting on Non Payment of Dues Receives Backlash from Consumer Rights Foundation

The telecom operators, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, missed the deadline given by the Supreme Court to pay the dues for the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) issue on which it passed the verdict on October 24. The dues on each of these telecom operators were Rs 53,000 crore for Vodafone Idea and Rs 35,500 crore on Bharti Airtel. But, it seems that some of the organisations in India have not taken this as lightly and have termed the act of missing deadline for these operators as a deliberate attempt. As per an ET Telecom report, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) which represents the major telecom companies, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea has also lashed out on this Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which has been termed as “motivated” and “mala fide interest” petition against the telecom industry. The PIL is against the Department of Telecommunication’s (DoT) stance of not taking any action on the telecom operators after they did not pay the dues on time. To recall, the telecom operators have been given leeway by the DoT after they missed the deadline of making payment for the AGR on the account that the Supreme Court decision on the matter is pending over a petition.

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DoT Holds Back on Coercive Action

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided not to take any coercive action against the telecom companies. It is worth noting that in a normal scenario, the Department of Telecommunication would have sent show-cause notices to these telecom companies asking them why they have defaulted on the payment. However, that has not been the case right now because of an internal notification inside the DoT, after the finance wing decided not to do something like this. But, on Saturday, the Save Consumer Rights Foundation filed a PIL in the Supreme Court, asking to strike down the decision of the DoT to not take any action against the telecom companies.