Bharti Airtel cannot add new 3G customers in seven zones where it does not own the airwaves and offers the services through pacts with other carriers, the Supreme Court said on Thursday, pending a final ruling in the dispute. Bharti can, however, continue 3G services in the zones for its existing customers, the court said, after hearing an appeal by India's top telecommunications carrier challenging a government ban on 3G pacts between carriers. The Supreme Court also said that no coercive steps will be taken on the issue of penalty raised against Airtel for allegedly illegally providing 3G services.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular currently offer 3G services outside their licensed zones through pacts with each other as no carrier managed to win the airwaves for all of India in a 2010 auction. The telecommunications ministry says the pacts are illegal. It had asked the carriers to end the pacts immediately and also imposed penalties on them.
On April 8, the Apex Court had directed the telecom department to not take any 'coercive action' against the country's largest mobile phone company Bharti Airtel till April 11. Last week, a panel of judges of the Delhi High Court quashed an earlier order of the court that had prevented the government from discontinuing Bharti Airtel's high-end services in seven regions Kolkata, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh and barred it from imposing a fee of Rs 350 crore. Bharti Airtel had appealed against the High Court's move.
Read