Bharti Airtel falls on likely Rs 650cr penalty by DoT

Moneycontrol Bureau

Bharti Airtel shares fell more than one percent Thursday, as the telecom major is likely to face a penalty of Rs 650 crore from the Department of Telecom, for allegedly violating licence terms on the subscriber local dialing (SLD) services.

"DoT this week has approved imposition of demand notices of financial penalty of Rs 500 crore and Rs 100 crore respectively on Bharti Airtel for violating licence conditions by provisioning of SLD services," said a PTI report, quoting unnamed sources.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has approved the recommendations of a DoT committee which stated that the maximum permissible financial penalty of Rs 50 crore each for 13 circles where the violations took place may be imposed on Bharti Airtel.

Sources also said Bharti Airtel was offering SLD services in 2003 and despite being instructed to stop, the company kept on providing the service up to 2005.

At 09:35 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 309.95, down 1.38 percent on Bombay Stock Exchange.