Staff Reporter :
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday ordered Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to reinstate spectrum allocation for CityCell.
The apex court ordered the CityCell to deposit Tk 100 crore in the BTRC account before November 19. If it fails to do so, the telecom regulator can cancel CityCell’s operation again, the SC said in its order.
The four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed this order after hearing a petition filed by CityCell seeking cancellation of BTRC decision.
Appellate Division also formed a special committee headed by Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, Vice-Chancellor of University of Asia Pacific, to settle the dispute between BTRC and Citycell over its due payment within 30 days.
The SC also fixed Tk 5 lakh as honorarium for the committee chief while Tk 2.5 lakh each for the other members of the committee and asked both the sides Citycell and the BTRC to bear the honorium.
Barrister Rokanuddin Mahmud, Advocate A M Amin Uddin and Advocate Mostafizur Rahman Khan represented CityCell in the court, while Attorney General Mahbubey Alam stood for the state. On the other hand, Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh and Barrister Khandaker Reza-E-Rabby pleaded for the BTRC.
Advocate Mostafizur Rahman Khan said that Appellate Division had directed BTRC to take initiatives so that CityCell could start its operation from Thursday.
On October 20, the BTRC suspended the spectrum of CityCell as it failed to pay the outstanding dues of Tk 477.63 crore. This suspension brought Citycell operation to shutdown.
After this decision Citycell filed an appeal on October 24 seeking injunction on the decision of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission cancelling the allocation of the spectrum.
Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division on October 25 sent the petition to the regular bench for hearing. The four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice heard the petition on Tuesday and set November 3 to pass an order.
The operator owes Tk 477.69 crore to the BTRC, and in August the apex court ordered CityCell to pay two-thirds of the amount i.e. Tk 318.42 crore before October 19. The operator managed to pay Tk 130 crore only.
In the petition, the mobile operator claimed that it paid Tk 130 crore to BTRC and Tk 14 crore to the National Board of Revenue in installments.
As CityCell failed to pay the two-thirds of the total amount within the stipulated time, the BTRC took the decision to suspend the operations of the mobile phone operator as per the law.
