In Brief
BSNL claimed that Vodafone and other operators routed international calls as national calls by tampering with Caller Line Identification (CLI) and sought to levy the highest applicable charges under a unilateral circular. The Court held that BSNL's circular dated 28.01.2004 was unilateral and could not amend the bilateral Interconnect Agreement, which required competent authority approval for any additional terms. The CLI regulations aligned with TRAI's directions requiring rejection of calls without proper CLI. The Court found that operators without international long-distance licences could not generate or route international calls, and BSNL failed to prove how this was technically possible. Amendments to the agreement that were prospective in nature could not be applied retrospectively. The appeals were largely dismissed, except for partial relief granted for trunk-group violations occurring after the relevant amendment date.
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