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Uninor, the joint mobile company between Telenor and Unitech, on Friday approached the Supreme Court challenging the hike in spectrum usage charges by the Department of Telecom.
Incumbent GSM operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Esar and Idea, have already filed an appeal against the DoT's decision.
Post the DoT's move to increase the usage charges, the fee now ranges from 3-8 per cent.
For instance, if a telecom company holds spectrum up to 4.4 Mhz, it will have to shell out 3 per cent of the annual revenue, compared to the earlier 2 per cent.
A bench headed by the Chief Justice Mr S. H. Kapadia admitted Uninor's petitions, and directed to tag it with similar pleas filed by other telecom operators. The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal had earlier refused to scrap the DoT order.
On October 22, the Supreme Court had stayed the TDSAT order but asked Bharti, Vodafone and Idea to deposit 50 per cent of the amount due to the Government, if the spectrum charges were hiked.
The apex court also asked the operators to furnish bank guarantees for the balance amount.
TDSAT order: In a separate case, TDSAT ordered Uninor, Videcon Teleservices, S Tel and Idea Cellular to pay 60 per cent of the penalty imposed by the DoT for their alleged failure to roll out services on time.
The DoT had issued notices to operators that got licences 2008, after the telecom regulator pointed out that these operators have failed to meet the roll-out obligation.
The four operators were given this direction in an interim order by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, which asked them to deposit part of the penalty within two weeks.
Directing the DoT to file its reply within two weeks, TDSAT has listed the matter for further hearing on February 10.
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