SC Declines To Stay TDSAT Order Favouring RCom On Spectrum Row

In a relief to Reliance Communications (RCom), the Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) order that had upheld the Anil Ambani-owned firm’s appeal in the One-Time Spectrum Charge (OTSC) petition.

In its February 4 order, TDSAT had upheld RCom’s petition that challenged the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) decision to impose OTSC on its contracted CDMA and GSM spectrum resources.

TDSAT held that the operator’s spectrum holdings of up to 5 MHz of CDMA and up to 6.2 MHz of GSM spectrum were exempt from OTSC levies. TDSAT had set aside OTSC on RCom’s spectrum.

The Supreme Court also upheld an earlier order dated July 3, 2018, that cancelled the return of ₹2,000 crore bank guarantees (BG) provided by RCom. The company has provided the BGs as securities for the OTSC demands.

NCLT process
The Anil Ambani group filed an Intervention Application (IA) with the Supreme Court last week, which was heard on Friday.

The move comes as a breather for RCom, which had earlier approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) with a debt resolution plan. The company also continues to pursue the deals with Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio) outside the NCLT.

The management had proposed a resolution plan as part of the NCLT process, which is similar to the one pursued outside.

The key elements of the process still remains the same, and the move will be helpful to RCom, as under the majority rule, the NCLT needs 66 per cent approval from minority lenders against 100 per cent outside. – The Hindu BusinessLine