Thursday, February 10 2005 19:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Rejecting BSNL's (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) plea to first decide the question of sole authority of TDSAT, the Delhi High Court today (Feb 10, 2005) agreed to hear the appeal filed by Reliance Infocomm challenging the demand of Rs 254 crore from it by the State-run telecom firm on interconnectivity charges.

The order to this effect was passed by a Bench comprising Justice B A Khan and Justice Anil Khan Kumar, which fixed March 10 for arguments on appeal filed by Reliance against the order of a single bench rejecting its plea to restrain BSNL from disconnecting points of inter-connection for its failure to pay the amount for the alleged routing of international calls as local ones.

At the outset of the hearing, BSNL's counsel C S Sundaram contended that the court did not have jurisdiction to decide on the dispute and the appropriate forum for it was TDSAT (Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appelate Tribunal).

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Reliance Infocomm, said that BSNL's plea was just an abuse of law as it has been filing such application repeatedly at different forum.

Since the dispute arose, Reliance Infocomm has paid over Rs 180 crore on Supreme Court's direction to avoid the threat of disconnection of Points of Interconnection (PoIs) by BSNL.