Leading telecom operators are bracing up for a legal battle with government over the issue of one-time fee on excess spectrum they hold. The telcos have already started gettingnotices to from DoT directing them to pay for holding excess spectrum beyond the prescribed limit.

According to reports, telecom operators are planning to approach the court against the government with leading operators confirming the move.

In November last year, the Cabinet has given go-ahead to the one-time fee on spectrum held by incumbent telecom firms such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.

According to government’s estimates, one-time fee for additional spectrum that the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) had recommended can fetch Rs. 24,000 crore.

According to PTI, DoT is believed o have tentatively fixed provisional rate for spectrum in 1800 Mhz band for Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka circles where it did not receive any bids and premium 900 Mhz band.

EGoM headed the finance minister P Chidambaram had recommended that incumbent operators would pay one-time fee for spectrum they hold above 4.4MHz. according to the panel’s decision.

The cabinet had decided that for all spectrum holdings beyond 4.4 MHz (GSM), a onetime charge be levied prospectively upon the existing operators at 2012 auction determined price. The date of applicability of the charge shall be the date of commencement of the first quarter following the date of the Cabinet decision;

For spectrum held above 6.2 (GSM), a one-time charge would be levied from July 2008 onwards. There will be two prices. The price, pro-rated for the period July 2008 up to the date of applicability of auction determined price, would be the 2001 entry fee divided by 6.2, duly indexed using State Bank of India Prime Lending Rate (SBI PLR).