The Supreme Court Friday directed Reliance Infocomm Ltd to pay Rs.847 million ($20 million) more to state-owned telephony provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) for illegally re-routing international calls as local ones.
The money should be paid within four weeks to meet BSNL's full demand of Rs.1.82 million, the court ruled. Reliance has already deposited Rs.980 million.
Judges N. Santosh Hegde and S.B. Sinha, constituting a division bench, passed the order on a special leave petition by BSNL challenging an interim order of the Delhi High Court asking Reliance to pay only Rs.400 million.
Appearing for the BSNL, counsel Soli Sorabjee contended that the high court had no jurisdiction to go into the dispute as only the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) could deal with such matters.
Sorabjee said the demand as on Nov 5 (when a division bench of the high court passed the interim order) was Rs 2.57 billion and Reliance must be asked to pay the entire amount.
He contended that Reliance was guilty of dishonestly breaching the terms of its interconnection agreement with the BSNL.
Sorabjee said there were around 10,000 fictitious numbers that were being operated by the company and it had become very difficult to detect them.
He said the actual fraud would run into several billions as the BSNL was getting information from several centres about the fraud committed by Reliance.
The bench then asked: "What is this big scale fraud going on?"
Counsel Harish Salve, appearing for Reliance, said there was absolutely no fraud as was being projected.
He said the re-routing of international calls was done by Reliance through Home Country Direct (HCD) while BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited were doing this under the India Direct scheme.
Salve disputed the demand notice issued by BSNL and said the matter should be settled through arbitration. Reliance had already appointed former chief justice S.P. Bharucha as its arbitrator.
The Bench made it clear to counsel for Reliance that the balance amount of Rs. 847 million, when the first demand was raised, should be cleared and all the contentious issues could be raised before the high court. Reliance agreed and four weeks time was granted to pay the money.
The Supreme Court bench said the high court could consider BSNL's argument that no one, whether a court or an arbitrator, except the TDSAT could adjudicate the dispute.
The bench asked the high court to dispose of the matter by Jan 31, 2005.
--Indo-Asian News Service