Kathmandu, January 17

The Supreme Court today vacated its interim order passed on December 25 in a writ petition filed by industrialist Binod Chaudhary-owned CG Communications Pvt Ltd.

A single bench of Justice Deepak Raj Joshee had issued the interim order, telling Nepal Telecommunications Authority to issue licence  to CG Communication to operate mobile phone service.

The order to vacate previous interim order was passed by a division bench of Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana and Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada. NTA had filed a petition at the SC seeking to vacate the interim order passed by single bench of Justice Joshee.

Acting Chief of NTA Purushottam Khanal told THT that the issuance of the interim order by single bench was based on a wrong premise and hence his office filed a petition seeking to vacate the interim order. He said the single bench had indicated in its order that the CG Communications had already got the licence, which was not the case. He said the CG Communications  moved the court after the NTA decided to auction mobile frequencies, saying that the NTA should ensure frequencies for CG Communications.

Madhu Sudan Paudel, general manager,  Corporate Communications, Chaudhary Group,  told THT that his office had not received the copy of the order yet and he would comment on the new order only after seeing the copy of the order. Chaudhary Group is the parent company of CG Communications.

Paudel, however, said that CG group would continue its effort to obtain licence for mobile phone service. “The government had on May 29, 2015 decided to award us the licence. We could not get the copy of the licence as the NTA delayed the process,” Paudel said, “The government decided to give us licence after a committee made a recommendation, saying competent companies should be given licence.”

Paudel said the CG Communications was committed to providing quality mobile service at 50 per cent low tariff.