Vodafone replies to DoT's license rejection

Vodafone India has written to Department of Telecom (DoT) expressing concern about its rejection letter dated 21st March,2013 discarding Vodafone's application for extension of license in Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata which is up for renewal in 2014.

The letter says DoT's rejection suffers from several fundamental flaws, contradictions, jurisdictional error, and completely misrepresents Vodafone India's position, and renders the said rejection legally unsustainable.

Vodafone India, in its letter has questioned DoT's version stating that the company had never asked extension for free and instead repeatedly requested DoT to propose new terms and condition for extension. However no such terms were provided to Vodafone despite several requests, demonstrating that DoT has not even considered Vodafone's application as contemplated in Clause 4.1 of the license.

Further, the letter underlines that DoT has wrongly stated that Vodafone has been insisting on same terms and conditions, while Vodafone has been asking DoT to provide terms for extension for consideration and mutual negotiation/discussion, which till date has not been provided to the company, and hence no mutual negotiation/discussion could take place as was required by clause 4.1 of the license.

Moreover, no opportunity was provided to the company as contemplated under the license and as directed by the hon'ble High Court in its direction dated 22nd February. The letter reiterates that Vodafone is still waiting for the ‘terms and conditions/offer' to enable the company to discuss and negotiate the matter in good faith.

The letter further states that DoT has not only misinterpreted and misconstrued clause 4.1 of thelicense, but have also made it redundant. DoT has completely ignored that Vodafone has a right of extension and the period of the license cannot be considered de hors the right of

extension.

VIL said "DoT has seriously misinterpreted National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012 and wrongly applied provisions of NTP stating that spectrum and licenses are already de-linked. However, as per the policy, NTP and spectrum de-linking are only for future licenses and, suitable measures would be taken to encourage existing service providers to migrate to a new regime.

The letter further highlights that DoT has completely disregarded the investments made by the company in networks, its faithful operations of the license for 18 years, its contribution to national tele-density objectives, revenues to the exchequer, all of which are relevant factors in determining expediency. The rejection of application shows that DoT has acted against public interest, as it will lead to disenfranchising 50-60 percent of the market leading to disruption of services.

Vodafone has requested DoT to correctly and faithfully apply and implement Clause 4.1 of the license and withdraw its rejection letter.