Telecom tribunal TDSAT on Wednesday directed state-run telecom companies BSNL and MTNL to refund the excess amount, along with 9 per cent interest, they had collected from RCom as interconnect user charges (IUC) charges.

"The respondents (MTNL and BSNL) are hereby directed to re-issue the bills ... and refund the excess amount to the petitioner (RCom) with interest at the rate of 9 per cent per annum from the date of deposit till the date of filing of this petition," a TDSAT bench headed by its Chairman Justice S B Sinha said.

The matter is related Foreign Country Direct Service, which was started by a calling card service Reliance India. It enabled customers abroad to call India.

However, DoT held that it was not permissible under the licence granted to RCom. It also found that RCom was routing these international calls as NLD calls and imposed penalty.

Later BSNL and MTNL also raised demands for additional IUC charges from RCom based on international calls along with penalty for the period between May, 2004 to September, 2004.

An operator pays interconnect user charges (IUC) to other for landing calls of its user on the other's network.

RCom had paid Rs 319.04 crore to BSNL and Rs 341.47 crore to MTNL under protest after both the PSUs issued notice to disconnect the ADAG group firm from their network.

In July 2012, RCom had approached TDSAT seeking refund of Rs 110 crore from BSNL and Rs 267 crores from MTNL contending that the PSUs raised bills for the minutes in excess with the total minutes terminated in their network.

According to RCom, BSNL was applying wrong termination charges on ILD calls of Rs 4.55 per minute instead of Rs. 4.25 per minute, since the termination charge of Rs. 0.30 per minute was already billed in the normal IUC bills. It also alleged that BSNL was applying wrong calculation method.