Settling a dispute between Department of Telecom and cellular operators, Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal order directing the Government to refund the interest on licence fee collected by it from four operators following their migration from the licence fee to revenue sharing regime.

A bench comprising justice S Rajendra Babu and justice A R Lakshmanan, while dismissing the DoT petition, upheld the TDSAT order directing DoT to refund the excess amount.

Those who would benefit from Tuesday order are Birla AT&T Communication, BPL Mobile, Escotel Mobile and Fascel.

TDSAT's April 9 order had directed the Government to pay five per cent interest on licence fee for six months period as the date for implementation of the migration package for telecom companies was extended by six month in 2000.

The apex court rejected the contention of the Government questioning the jurisidiction of TDSAT to pass such a direction amounting to rewriting the contracts between cellular operators and the DoT.

TDSAT had held that the Government had not issued any order nor did the migration package contain any clause whereby the amount of outstanding licence fee payable had been reduced and the outstanding interest amount had been retained intact.

"After the migration package was evolved and announced, the liability to pay licence fee stands modified. There is no specific provision to the effect that interest will not consequentially be reduced," it had said.