The Delhi High Court on Monday asked Idea Cellular Ltd and its chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla to respond to DoT’s plea which alleged that the company did not comply with its earlier order by adding new customers to its 3G services outside its license zones.

The court also issued contempt notices to Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director of ICL, Akshya Moondra, Chief Financial Officer of the firm, P Lakshminarayana and Pankaj Kapdeo, Company Secretaries of ICL. The Court has set August 5 as the next date for hearing.

The government had approached the court seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against Idea and its office bearers for "wilful and deliberate" disobedience of a judicial order passed on April 12 asking the company not to add new 3G subscribers.
 
The contention of DoT is that instead of obeying the order Idea had filed an additional affidavit stating that it has 'additionally decided' to provide 3G services to those existing customers who meet the criteria.
 
Reacting to this Idea said that it continues to be in complete compliance with the order of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court dated 12th April 2013 as regards 3G ICR, and no new 3G subscribers have been added in the “3G Seeker Service Areas” of Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, North East, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.  IT said that ompany continues to lose existing 3G subscribers in these 3G seeker service areas since the date of the Court Order.
 
"The order of April 12 is clear and has to be obeyed in its entirely. The petitioner, under the garb of so-called criteria, has modified the condition imposed by this court on April 12... Therefore, it amounts to contempt of the said order," DoT said in its contempt plea.

In April the leading telcos Airtel, Vodafone and Idea were asked by the Department of Telecommunications to stop 3G roaming services in circles where they don’t have licenses. The High Court had vacated its stay order which prevented government from executing its order asking these companies to stop 3G services.

The High Court vacated the stay order services on RCom’s plea which cited the adverse impact on its business due to Airtel’s 3G roaming services.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea which entered into agreement with each other for offering 3G services by using each other's airwaves, had won licenses for 13, 9 and 11 circles, respectively in 2010. These three GSM operators then entered into agreement with each other for offering 3G services by using each other's airwaves.

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