Bharti Airtel buzzes as Tribunal rejects predatory pricing norms

The dispute settlement tribune for the telecom industry rejects TRAI's rules for penalising telecom companies on predatory pricing practices. The TDSAT ruled that TRAI had issued the new definition and rules without enough consultation with the industry.

Elated with this development, the stocks of telecom operators who had appealed against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have spiked up. At 10:47 hours, the stock of Airtel was trading at Rs. 323.10 per share, up by 6.74 per cent, while Vodafone Idea was at 36.50 per share, up by 4.58 per cent on BSE on Friday. The benchmark index BSE Sensex was at 35,944.91, up by 15.27 points or 0.04 per cent.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) ruled that TRAI had notified new norms without proper consultation and deliberation and that TRAI cannot penalise telcos for concessions given to existing consumers in order to retain them. TDSAT ruling also gives the telecom operators relief from posting on their websites special segmented discounts or offers.

Under the new norms, TRAI intended to impose a penalty of up to Rs. 50,00,000 per circle on operators for predatory tariff plans. Bharti Airtel and Idea alleged that the new norms were supposedly kind of beneficial to the new entrant Reliance Jio.