Telecom tribunal TDSAT on Monday reserved order on RCom’s plea alleging that alleging that government’s July 3 circular allowing a CDMA player to bid for only one slot of 1.25 MHz of spectrum, as against GSM players who can bid for two such lots, is discriminatory.
While DoT who was issued notice by TDSAT failed to appear before TDSAT Justice S B Sinha reserved the order after hearing the Anil Ambani group firm and the sectoral regulator Trai.
RCom, in its petition has submitted that as per the DoT's circular of July 3 this year, the government would allot two blocks of 1.25 Mhz to existing GSM operators in the proposed auction, while the CDMA can bid for one only.
“This approach of respondent No 1 (Government of India) is discriminatory and leads to non-level playing field among the similarly placed UAS licensees,” said RCom in its plea. “This move was creating a non-level playing field”, Rcom said in its petition.
RCom said that it was not against the auction but the guidelines issued by the DoT for auction should be revised to allow a level-playing field between the existing GSM and CDMA operators. It has requested TDSAT to declare clause related to block allocations as “arbitrary and discriminatory in nature and quash them.
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