The Department of Telecom is still holding back licence of Qualcomm's broadband venture despite the US chipmaker agreeing to give bank guarantees on behalf of its partner Tulip Telecom.

In addition, the Department has sent another notice to Tulip Telecom claiming that the company had not paid dues of Rs 260 crore for the period 2005 to 2009.

The DoT had earlier sent a notice to Tulip Telecom for dues of Rs 146 crore for the period 2009-11. While Tulip has challenged this amount, Qualcomm has agreed to stand guarantee so that DoT can issue its licence without further delay. Qualcomm disclosed this at a recent hearing of the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal, which in turn asked the DoT to give its response.

But on February 6, the same day when the TDSAT asked DoT to file its response, the Department faxed another notice to Tulip for Rs 260 crore for the period 2005-09, of which Rs 155 crore is interest and penalties. But, according to internal DoT documents, Tulip Telecom had already paid dues up to 2008.

In December 2008, the DoT had sent a notice for Rs 481 for the year 2005-06. This was paid by Tulip. Then in July 2009 it sent a notice for Rs 192 crore for the period 2006-08. Tulip contested this amount on grounds that the DoT had included its income from manufacturing business while calculating the licence fee payable. In a letter dated August 24, 2009, the Department agreed to bring down the dues to Rs 2.42 crore. Tulip finally paid up on October 15, 2009 after DoT threatened action.

But now the Department has sent a fresh notice claiming dues for the entire period starting from 2005 to 2009 based on its internal audit department's recommendations. This takes the total dues on Tulip to Rs 400 crore.

The DoT is now using this to hold back licences to Qualcomm because Tulip is a minority stakeholder in the broadband venture. Qualcomm had won spectrum in four circles in the auction held in 2010 but the DoT has not allocated the airwaves to the US company.

Initially, the Department said that it could not give four licences to Qualcomm. When the company offered to take only one licence after merging all four circles into one entity, the DoT raised eligibility issues claiming that the company did not apply on time. Qualcomm took the matter to TDSAT and just when the tribunal said that it will close the hearing at its next hearing on February 13, the DoT has raised fresh dues on Tulip.

Senior DoT officials said that it is common practice to send demand notice on operators for the previous period as the audit division may find some new aspects on which the due licence fee wasn't paid by the operator earlier. “There are a whole bunch of cases where we have issued notices to operators after auditors found gaps in what the operator paid and what they should pay.

tkt@thehindu.co.in

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