The Supreme Court today dismissed a seven-year-old BSNL petition challenging the orders of sectoral tribunal TDSAT, which had dismissed the claims of the state-run telecom firm on national long distance operation (NLDO).

BSNL had challenged the orders of the sectoral regulator TRAI before TDSAT, which had permitted Bharti Airtel group firm Bharti Telesonic Limited to carry NLDO (STD calls) on its own network.

In November 2001, BTSOL was given license for NLDO and private operators were routing NLDO call on its network. Prior to it all NLDO calls of private operators were routed through BSNL's network.

A bench comprising Justice Markandey Katju and Justice T S Thakur dismissed the petition of BSNL after observing that the order of sectoral regulator TRAI regarding NLDO has become infructous, hence nothing has remained in this matter.

BSNL had challenged an order of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, which had on March 2003 dismissed the appeal of the PSU.

BSNL had challenged the direction of the TRAI before the tribunal, which had made an interim arrangement regarding distribution of default traffic on NLDO between the PSU and Bharti Telesonic Limited (BTSOL).

TRAI had said that operators can by default pick any of the two NLDO licencee -- BSNL and BTSOL - for STD calls.

This was challenged by BSNL before the TDSAT on the ground that BTSOL cannot transfer the NLDO call of its own network.

Terming the transfer of calls by BTSOL as illegal, BSNL had claimed it had suffered a loss of Rs 25 crores and sought the money back.

However, this was later resolved by TRAI, when it gave permission to the cellular operators to route NLDO calls by their own choice.