Leading telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, will have to deposit with the

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Supreme Court half of the Rs 470-crore carrier charges they owe to state-owned BSNL, the apex court said.

“You would have to show your bona fide and have to submit at least half the amount in the Supreme Court registry, then only we would stay TDSAT’s order,” a bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia and Justice KS Radhakrishnan told COAI and AUSPI, the two operators’ lobbies, which have challenged the sectoral tribunal TDSAT’s order.

The court was hearing two petitions filed by lobby groups— COAI and AUSPI— challenging the TDSAT order, which set aside a directive of telecom sector regulator Trai, to pay carriage charges to BSNL on a uniform rate of 20 paise a call for completing intra-circle calls. BSNL levies carriage charges for forwarding calls originating from private telco networks to its own network.

The court also directed members of COAI, including Vodafone and Aircel to submit affidavits having their due towards BSNL. “Each of the operator would indicate the exact amount, which according to them, they have to give,” the bench said. Bharti Airtel from the GSM side and AUSPI lobby group, which represents CDMA-based telcos Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, have already filed their statements.

Solicitor general Gopal Subramanium, appearing for BSNL, informed the apex court that private telecom operators owe around Rs 470 crore to the PSU. He further submitted that Airtel, Tata Tele and Reliance alone owe Rs 170 crore to BSNL. According to operators, TDSAT has also set aside two letters written by Trai on May 17, 2006 to the PSU and “wrongly allowed BSNL to levy distance-based carriage charges on the appellant instead of a uniform carriage charge of 20 paise per minute in case of intra-circle”.

The lobby groups have further said that Trai, in its regulation, had directed BSNL to take 20 paise as carriage charge for all calls for and from private cellular mobile networks.