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| Thursday, 20 November 2003 |
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Appeal Court refuses Mobitel's stay order By Chamitha Kuruppu The controversial GSM launch of Mobitel is now in troubled waters as the Court of Appeal yesterday refused the stay order filed by Mobitel Private Limited against the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) and fixed the inquiry for November 25. The Court of Appeal also ordered that a copy of the petition be served on TRC. However, the company said that it will continue to pre-register customers and will continue the offer of incoming free for all customers who register with them from November 12 to December 31. Several rounds of discussions were held between the TRC and Mobitel following a decision taken by TRC that Mobitel is creating anti-competition in the industry as well as its advertising campaign was misleading the public. TRC warned Mobitel several times and had many discussions, but the TRC was 'too democratic' on the issue, a senior official attached to the TRC said. "TRC has no objection against Mobitel testing its GSM network, but we have told them how to do the testing and expect them to correct themselves", the official said. The official added that though TRC had powers to take legal action against Mobitel for creating anti-competition and misleading advertisements as well as introducing tariff packages without getting approval from the regulatory, TRC gave time for Mobitel to regulate their new campaign. Meanwhile, a release from Mobitel said that due to objections raised by interested parties the TRC informed the company that its endeavour to give the benefits to the public would be disallowed and issued a directive requesting the company to refrain from giving such benefits to the public. The release said that the company took legal advice which affirmed that the actions by the company were in accordance with its licence and the Telecommunications Act. Mobitel is a company, which believes that service and public benefit should be taken into consideration in carrying out commercial decisions, it said. This philosophy coupled with legal advice led the company to the conclusion that in all good conscience it could not acquiesce to a directive issued by the TRC that the company believes is bad in law and, which deprives the public of significant benefits. The company said that it will continue to pre-register customers and will continue the offer of incoming free for all customers who register with them from November 12 to December 31. |
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