RCom was not favoured, charges malicious: Sibal

New Delhi, Jul 8 (PTI) Facing allegations of favouring
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications, Indian Telecom
Minister Kapil Sibal on Friday hit out at an NGO which has
approached the Supreme Court against him and said PILs should
not be used to "settle personal scores".
He dismissed the charges against him as "malicious,
motivated and defamatory" and said if such a scenario
prevailed, a minister would not be able to take tough
decisions.
Addressing a press conference here, Sibal insisted that
the penalty of Rs 5 crore imposed on RCom for interrupting
services briefly was as per the agreement between USO Fund and
the private operator and questioned the basis of the NGO's
claim that the company should have been fined Rs 650 crore.
"I am deeply grieved by what is happening by the PIL
filed by an Non-Governmental Organization in the Supreme Court
stating that Telecom Minister has abused his power to reduce
penalty on Reliance Telecom to Rs 5 crore," the agitated
minister said.
He termed as "unfortunate" the allegations that he had
over-ruled officials of his ministry, saying the government
could not function this way that a minister cannot take a
decision because he would be labelled as "dishonest and
wanting to favour private parties".
Sibal suggested that the Public Interest Litigations were
being misused as they were meant only for serving public
interest and "not to settle personal score". He, however, did
not elaborate even when asked whether he felt he was
deliberately being targeted.
Giving details of the issue, he said Reliance Telecom
services were switched off for "whatever reasons" in November
2010 and on December 21, a show cause notice was issued to the
company threatening imposition of "lumpsum" amount of Rs 50
crore as penalty for the same.

"The notice for Rs 50 crore was to pressurise the
Reliance Telecom.... They got worried," Sibal said, adding
finally the services were restored on February 16, this year
and the company paid a penalty of Rs 5.5 crore.
He maintained that the penalty was calculated on the
basis of duration of disruption of services (7-45 days) as
provided in the agreement between USO Fund and RCom.
An application was filed in the Supreme Court by Centre
for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) alleging that Sibal
reduced the penalty from Rs 650 crore to Rs five crore against
Anil Ambani-headed RCom for violations in the UASL agreement.
The NGO alleged that a penalty of Rs 50 crore per circle
should have been imposed for "violation of the terms and
conditions of Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF)
agreement and UASL agreement by voluntary, unilateral and
unauthorized switching-off/closure of services to subscribers
from USOF sites without any notice."
"The Rs 5 crore penalty on the ADAG firm was as per the
agreement between the USOF and Reliance Telecom. The DoT was
nothing to do with the penalty as the company had not violated
the rules of license conditions," Sibal said.
He said when the file reached him on February 18, this
year, RCom had already restored the services two days prior to
that. He said he gave instructions to impose penalty as per
the provisions of the agreement and did not himself decide the
amount of Rs 5 crore as penalty.
He, however, was evasive when asked on what basis Rs 50
crore was decided as penalty.