KATHMANDU, JUN 18--The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday issued the show-cause order responding to the writ petition filed by STM Telecom Sanchar against the decision to issue the unified telecom licence. The SC has also decided to continue hearing of STM Telecom’s case along with other cases related to the unified licence on June 24.
A single bench of Acting Chief Justice Damodar Prasad Sharma had issued the show-cause notice to defendants in written before June 24, according to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA). Seeking stay order against the decisions to issue unified licence and assign frequency to United Telecom Limited (UTL) and Smart Telecom, STM Telecom had filed the case against the NTA, UTL and Smart Telecom last week.
Two months ago, NTA had decided to issue the unified licence to UTL and Smart Telecom and assign 5 MHz frequency to the both companies in 900 MHz band for service operation. STM Telecom had also applied for a unified license along with Smart Telecom and UTL. However, the NTA had decided to issue the licence to STM Telecom in future citing the company’s failure to meet government-set criteria in the Nepal Gazette.
Unified licence allows the telecom companies obtaining it to operator multiple telecom services including GSM mobile service. After the decision of the NTA, Smart Telecom already obtained the licence. It has also been already revealed that the current NTA board had decided to issue licence to UTL and Smart Telecom defying the rules set in the Nepal Gazette. To claim the licence, UTL has not cleared the committed royalty dues to the government, while Smart Telecom was decided eligible for the licence without checking its criteria thoroughly, according to the NTA source.
With the unified licence issue landing into controversy, over half dozen cases related to it are under consideration of the SC. Cases have been filed against the issues that include unified licence provision, new frequency policy, appointment of new chairman of NTA, current stop-gap board of the NTA and its decision to issue the unified licence to Smart Telecom and UTL.
Meanwhile, the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) which has also been investigating over the unified licence has sought more details from the NTA about the new licence provision and three companies which applied for it. Last month too, the anti graft body had demanded information from NTA asking on what basis it decided to issue the unified licence.
An official at the NTA said that they had submitted information as per previous demand of the CIAA. “This time it has sought more details about UTL, Smart Telecom and STM Telecom,” the officials added. However, another official said as they were not clear about the details demanded, they would correspond with the CIAA and provide the details soon. Going by the instruction of the CIAA, NTA was supposed to submit the information sought by Tuesday.
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