An end to the confrontation between the department of telecom and the private telecom operators over the 3G roaming pacts entered into by the latter does not seem to in sight with the former alleging that service providers had “not come with clean hands” and that they have “suppressed material documents”.

The allegation came in an affidavit before the telecom dispute tribunal TDSAT, where DoT had requested the latter to dismiss the telecom operators’ petition challenging the government directive to stop 3G roaming immediately.

As has been its stand from the beginning, the DoT, in the affidavit has also said that the 3G roaming pact by operators were “in violation of various terms and conditions of cellular mobile telecom service licenses and various terms and conditions of the notice inviting applications (NIA) dated February 25, 2010 for the 3G/BWA auction”.

DoT has asked the private operators, who include the top service providers of the country, to stop offering the 3G roaming to their subscribers in the areas where they had failed to win 3G spectrum in the auction held in 2010.

The telecom operators — Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel and Tata — had entered into agreement with each other to offer 3G services in the name of inter-circle roaming, thereby avoiding any spectrum usage charge or license fee to the government.

DoT further submitted in its affidavit that “in spite of the directions by this tribunal vide order dated December 24, 2011, the petitioners (operators) have not submitted the intracircle roaming agreements entered into with various telecom service providers. The present petition is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.”

DoT had on Dec 23, 2011, issued notices to telcos saying their 3G roaming pacts were illegal and should be stopped immediately within 24 hours.

Following the order the operators, who have sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention and have also threatened to return the 3G spectrum if they were forced to stop offering the service, challenged DoT’s decision before TDSAT on the same day.

Passing an interim order on an urgent petition moved by operators against the DoT directive, TDSAT on December 24, 2011 restrained the government from taking any coercive action against them.

DoT also said that operators’ petition was also not maintainable as relief sought for would amount to altering the terms and conditions of the CMTS/UAS license agreement and the NIA for 3G/BWA Auction. “It may be noted there is no challenge to the terms and conditions of the CMTS/UAS license. However, by way of present petition the petitioners are mischievously seeking such reliefs which are contrary to the terms and conditions of the CMTS/UAS license and the NIA for 3G/BWA Auction,” DoT said.