Delhi HC dismisses Vodafone Idea’s plea against Rs 2000 cr penalty: Report

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed Vodafone Idea’s appeal against a recommendation by the telecom regulator that would effectively result in a Rs 2,000-crore penalty for the telco for denying points of interconnect to Reliance Jio, CNBC-TV18 reported.

To recall, in 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended the levy of a Rs 50 crore penalty on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone for each of the 21 circles in the country, excluding Jammu & Kashmir. The penalty added up to Rs 1,050 crore for each telco. The regulator also recommended a penalty of Rs 950 crore on Idea for 19 circles. Vodafone and Idea had merged in 2018 to form Vodafone Idea, according to the report.

The regulator had cited that the telcos violated the licensing norms by denying adequate points of interconnect to Jio. The move, as per TRAI, was aimed at stifling competition and anti-consumer. Further, the denying of points of interconnect had led to a huge number of call failures on Jio network, said the report.

Following this, Vodafone moved the Delhi High Court in 2016 to quash TRAI’s recommendation, reasoning that the regulator’s move was against the “principles of natural justice”, as per the report.

Vodafone had also said that the regulator’s recommendation to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was “neither an exercise of statutory powers nor an action contemplated under the quality of service regulation”, saying that it will arbitrary and beyond the jurisdiction of TRAI and should be quashed.

A division bench of chief justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad reserved its order on the matter on April 24 after hearing the parties, according to the report. It added that a detailed report is awaited.