DoT says stall RCom case till SC ruling

The Department of Teleco-mmunications (DoT) on Friday submitted an affidavit in the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) opposing the resolution plan for Reliance Communications (RCom) and its unit Reliance Telecom Ltd (RTL), as no dues are being paid to the government from the proceeds of the ongoing insolvency proceedings. This is despite spectrum, the main asset being put up for sale, which belongs to the government and not the company. DoT is understood to have filed a 19-page affidavit before NCLT, Mumbai and prayed that the resolution plan be set aside in the light of the matter of insolvency of RCom and RTL being sub-judice in the Supreme Court.

It has highlighted it has dues of over Rs 31,000 crore from the two firms and nothing has been allocated to it. It has said the current plan manifests a discrimination against it. The department said that it remains fundamentally opposed to any resolution plan that involves nu-llifying the DoT’s statutory dues payable under licence agreeme-nt u/s 4 of Indian Telegraph Act.