The communications ministry feels that Indian telecom players are answerable on the security concerns over Blackberry services that they are providing in the country, an issues being questioned by the operators.
Blackberry services are offered by Canadian firm Research-In-Motion enabling subscribers to send and receive e-mails in the form of SMS. There are about four lakh users of these services in India.
"This is a matter between RIM and the department of telecom and we are confident that it will be resolved," Bharti Airtel president and CEO Manoj Kohli said.
DoT is of the view that it has nothing to do with RIM, which offers Blackberry services through mobile operators.
"Our license agreement is with the Indian cellular operators and not with RIM. If any of the clause is flaunted we have to deal with the operators and not the Blackberry service provider," DoT officials told PTI.
The ministry of home affairs is understood to have issued instructions to mobile operators like Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone not to route certain Blackberry services unless the required monitoring system was put in place.
According to officials in the DoT, Blackberry licensor RIM has sought time till April 18 to address issues related to lawful interception of content sent through the Blackberry device.
