A lawyer has filed a public interest litigation in the High Court challenging the legality of the WiMax licence awarded recently to Bangladesh Internet Exchange Ltd (BIEL), a co-brand of Ollo, without any competitive auction.
Barrister Aneek R Haque filed the writ petition last Thursday on behalf of Omar Farouq, an advocate of the High Court. The respondents include the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and BIEL.
The court is likely to hold a hearing on the petition today, sources said.
According to the petition, “the procedure of issuing licence to respondent no. 6 (BIEL) is improper, illegal and is done in a non- transparent manner.”
“BIEL has already refused this licence and now cannot be given the same licence without following the competitive bidding and/or auction procedure,” it adds.
The petitioner seeks a rule upon the ministry concerned and BTRC as to why the issuance of a BWA (broadband wireless access) licence to BIEL “shall not be declared as illegal, void and without lawful authority and of no legal effect”.
“We have lots of evidence, and all will be placed before the court to show that the licencing procedure was ill-motivated. It also violated related laws and guidelines,” Aneek R Haque told the Dhaka Tribune.
On November 4, the government decided to award BIEL a WiMax licence with long-term evolution (LTE), a fourth generation telephone and mobile broadband communication standard that will make Ollo the most influential operator in the country.
Ollo, a co-brand of BIEL and New Generation Graphics Limited (NGGL) _ both now owned by the Russian company, Multinet, applied for a WiMax licence in April this year. NGGL was allocated 20MHz spectrum on 800 bands free of cost in 2011.
The petition also points out that BTRC in 2004 published licencing procedure regulations, which have been amended several times and included WiMax in 2008, when an auction was held.
“It also clarified that no WiMax licence would be awarded without an auction,” said Aneek, who had conducted the auction awarding WiMax licences in 2008.
Before the auction, the regulator also announced that four licences would be given, with one reserved for state-owned BTCL. It also fixed Tk2.15bn as licence fee for providing BWA (WiMax) services, the petition says.
In the auction held in September 2008, Banglalion Communications Ltd became the highest bidder, BRAC Net Ltd came second, while Augere Wireless Broadband Ltd (Qubee) was third.
As per the guideline, second and third highest bidders matched the price of the highest bidder. However, BRAC Net declined to take the licence.
The petition says: “It is pertinent to mention here that BIEL also participated in auction and was the fifth highest bidder”.
As per the auction guideline, the licence declined by BRAC was then offered to the other participants, in the order of higher to lower bidder, to be taken up by paying a similar licence fee. But every other bidder, including BIEL, refused the offer.
However, Mango Teleservices Ltd, the lowest bidder, responded positively, but sought a time extension to pay the licence fee. Its request was rejected by BTRC.
The company then filed a writ petition in the High Court, which issued a rule nisi upon BTRC to show cause. The writ is still pending before the High Court Division.
“As the issue is not finalised, the government or the regulator cannot proceed further,” Aneek added.
