A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and V Kameswar
Rao permitted the top auditing body to conduct audit of private telecom
companies under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act.
It rejected the separate petitions of Association of
Unified Telecom Service Providers (AUSPI) and Cellular Operators Association of
India (COAI) filed against the decision of Telecom tribunal TDSAT on the issue
in 2010.
The high court had reserved its order in November
2013, after conducting marathon hearings on the issue where it took on record
submissions of the Centre, CAG and the petitioners -- COAI and AUSPI.
Both the associations had argued, in essence, that CAG
can't audit private companies.
To achieve the purpose of audit, the operators had
pointed out that they have already put in place mechanism of special audit as
envisaged in the license agreement between department of telecom and the
companies.
The firms had claimed they maintain accounts in line
with the TRAI rules and can't be forced to furnish finance to CAG.
The CAG had vigorously staked its claim to audit the
accounts and sought revenue sharing details from the telecom companies.
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