New Delhi: The chairman of the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) Justice D P Wadhwa on August 9 disagreed with the majority decision upholding Wireless Local Loop (WLL) services by basic telecom operators and questioned the role of government and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to permit this in the first place.

The dissent note from TDSAT chairman, a former Supreme Court judge, questioned the legality of the government's decision and blamed the Department of Telecom for not supplying relevant records to the empowered Group of Ministers (GoT-IT), which had recommended allowing WLL services by basic operators.

"Even TRAI failed in its legal obligations and gave faulty recommendations," Justice Wadhwa said in a strongly worded judgement comprising his dissent.

"We regret we are unable to agree with the report of GoT-IT in spite of its constitution of profound persons. But for this it is the DoT which is to be blamed as relevant record was suppressed from the empowered committee," he said.

Justice Wadhwa in his order pointed out that telecom regulator TRAI in its move to consider the issue had raised the question of whether WLL with mobility should be permitted.

"It would be seen that the approach itself was faulty. It posed a wrong question and got a wrong answer. The first and foremost question should have been if the WLL is permissible at all. You cannot give correct answer when you start with a question whether WLL with mobility should be permitted," Wadhwa said.

PTI