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The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal has asked the Government to issue broadband licence to Qualcomm within a week. This came after the Department of Telecom agreed to the offer made by Qualcomm to pay Rs 410 crore dues on behalf of its joint venture partner Tulip Telecom.
The tribunal asked the US chipmaker to deposit the money to the DoT. On the issue of spectrum allocation the tribunal said that the DoT will not adopt any adversarial approach. The TDSAT Bench, headed by the Chairman, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha, further asked the DoT to dispose of the application of Qualcomm for BWA spectrum expeditiously.
Qualcomm had offered to pay Rs 410 crore dues of its Indian partner Tulip Telecom on the condition that the Government will allot the licence and spectrum for wireless broadband services.
Earlier, the DoT had rejected Qualcomm's offer to secure the previous Rs 146 crore dues of Tulip through bank guarantees. Counsel appearing for Qualcomm informed the tribunal that the company had no option except to pay the dues of Tulip to get the broadband spectrum.
Qualcomm also said that the DoT had assured them that the licence would be issued to them within 48 hours if the dues are cleared. Tulip owns 13 per cent stake in the broadband venture set up by Qualcomm after it won spectrum in the auctions held in 2010. In December, the DoT had issued a show-cause notice to Tulip claiming dues of Rs 146 crore for 2009-10 and 2010-11. In February, another demand notice was sent for the previous years starting from 2005-06.
While Tulip has challenged this amount, Qualcomm has agreed to pay it off so that the DoT can issue the licence without further delay.
According to internal DoT documents, Tulip Telecom had paid dues up to 2008. In December 2008, the DoT had sent a notice for Rs 481 crore for 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.
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