India Telecom Dispute resolution body, TDSAT, the telecom dispute settlement & appellate tribunal, has no serving member on its panel from today. The only serving member, Mr. P. K. Rastogi, retired y’day, making the fate of body un-certain. TDSAT has to decide on multiple key disputes, including 3G roaming pact among operators, which has been long due to hearing for resolution.
The body, designed to address dispute among telcos & government of India, was headless in last year November, when chairman, S.B. Sinha retired. Since then the body was served by two members, causing the problem with dispute resolutions & voting. And now after retirement of last serving member y’day, the future of disputes pending to be resolved remain unknown. Now, Government has to either appointment care-taker members till new members are appointed or decide on new full fledge serving member team soon.
It’s really surprising that despite its serving importance, government has failed to replace retired members, including the body chairman, even after four months.
With this, the future of many telecom policy disputes, including the decision over 3G inter-roaming pacts among telcos hangs uncertain, making fate of millions of 3G subscribers undecided till the decision is made.
