Court Correspondent :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to reconnect the Citycell’s frequency within 24 hours.
A three-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice SK Sinha passed the order after hearing on a petition filed by the first mobile phone operator (Citycell). The apex court also asked the relevant authorities to reactivate Citycell’s liscence and fixed August 6 for hearing on a petition filed on a charge of contempt of court.
On Monday, Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) decided to scrap the liscence of the Citycell. Earlier, on October 20, 2016, BTRC suspended the spectrum allotment of Citycell as they failed to pay the outstanding amounting to Tk 477.63 crore. The Citycell authorities filed the petition with the Appellate Division on October 24 seeking a stay on the decision of the BTRC that suspended its spectrum for the non-payment of dues.
On November 3, last year, the apex court ordered the authorities to reopen Citycell frequency and directed mobile firm to pay dues of Tk 1 billion by November 19.
Besides, the court fixed Tk 500,000 as honorarium to the committee chief while Tk 250,000 each for other members of the committee and asked both- Citycell and the BTRC to bear the honorarium.
The Appellate Division ordered Citycell to pay Tk 477.51 crore dues to the BTRC in two installments for continuing its operation on August 29, last year.
The apex court asked the mobile phone operator to pay the first slot of Tk 318.42 crore, two-thirds of the total outstanding dues within October 19. As Citycell failed to pay the first slot of the total amount within the stipulated time, BTRC decided to suspend the operations of the mobile phone operator as per their earlier decision.
