The Supreme Court's order that the Comptroller and Auditor General >(CAG) can audit telecom operators can open a Pandora’s Box and lead to similar demand in other industries, unhappy service providers said.
“Yes, whatever the judgment the Supreme Court has given to us, we will abide by it. But, it has certain other connotations, which we should be aware of. This judgment has no precedence, and any company that contributes to the Consolidated Fund of India is liable to audit by CAG. This is opening of a Pandora’s Box,” Ashok Sud, Secretary-General, Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) — the CDMA operators association — told IANS .
An apex court bench, headed by Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan, upheld a
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“Industry is definitely not happy with the situation and that is the reason it went to the Supreme Court. We already pay a chunk of our earnings to the government. Recently, the spectrum auction got completed and most of the operators have bought airwaves. Now if we cannot keep a margin for all these stringent rules, the burden will be passed on to the subscribers,” an industry source said. Mahesh Uppal, director of telecom consultancy firm Com First, told IANS that “not all operators will be equally impacted from this decision but implementation will remain a concern since it involves billions of dollars of revenues of around 200 licences over 22 service areas”.