Chennai sources reported that the Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to quash the TRAI regulations pertaining to access charges levied by owners of cable landing stations, where submarine cables providing international connectivity terminate in the country, but struck down an order which drastically lowered the tariff. Meanwhile a bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar upheld the powers of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to make such regulations.
Accordingly it was passing orders on writ appeals by the Tata Telecommunication Ltd and Bharti Airtel challenging an earlier order of a single judge who had upheld three TRAI regulations of 2007, October 2012 and December 2012. As per report the TRAI had amended the International Telecommunication Access to Essential Facilities at Cable Landing Stations Regulations and taken over the power to control and decide the charges levied by CLS' owners for granting access to the facility to the domestic telecommunication operators.
Moreover the bench, however, quashed the tariff fixed by TRAI in 2012
slashing charges levied by CLS owners to one tenth of the existing tariff on
ground of lack of transparency. Furthermore it directed the TRAI to redo the
process strictly in accordance with the existing laws within six months. Earlier
the TRAI had slashed the access charges following complaints that the rates
charged by the petitioner firms were excessive.
