Legal and Licensing

The Legal & Licensing (LL) Division implements all the decisions of the Commission relating to issuance, renewal, amendment, suspension and cancellation of license; drafts regulations and guidelines; vets all legal documents of the Commission and takes measures for Court cases filed by or against the Commission. A depiction of these duties and responsibilities of LL Division is given below: 

Legal and Licensing Division performs, in short, the following duties and responsibilities:
 

Implementation of all the decisions of the Commission relating to legal issues.

Giving legal advice on all matters as per requirement of the Commission.

Performing legal vetting on proposed agreements and contracts.

Hearing of complaints, dealing with show-cause notices.

Drafting and vetting of regulations, guidelines and licenses.

Dealing with Court cases lodged for and against the Commission.

To perform all activities regarding the decision of the Commission on amendment of Act of 2001, Regulations and Policy.

Dispute resolution between the licensees.

To conduct legal inspection on violation of licensing conditions and any other issues of the Commission.

To implement all the decisions of the Commission relating to licensing issues.

To perform the licensing activities including Fixed i.e. wireless and wire line related Telecom Services, Cellular services, other Telecom system and services, Telecom Gateway, Exchange, Data and Voice network.

To perform Issuance, Revalidation, Renewal, Suspension, Cancellation and Amendment of Licenses with the prior approval of the Commission.

To invite for application of Licenses, receipt of proposals, evaluation of applications.

Ensuring the update of  licensee's data on BTRC web and implementation of Commission's decisions regarding issuance, surrender, conversion, changes of licensing conditions.

Summary of Legal Action

There were certain legal disputes which were taken to court for settlement and some violations of Telecommunication Act by the offender demanded attention to ensure punishment by the court. Following stanzas will describe briefly about the court cases pending with lower and higher judiciary.

a) BTRC takes legal actions against any person providing telecom service without any license or necessary permit from the Commission. Generally, criminal actions are taken against the wrongdoers by lodging G.R. cases with the concerned Police Station. The Legal and Licensing Division always guides and co-operates with the complainants and the Investigation Officers to run the proceedings in the courts in order to achieve positive result in favour of the Commission. In the year 2008-2009, eight criminal cases were disposed of. All disposal orders in these cases were passed in favour of BTRC. To prevent providing illegal telecom service, the Commission lodged 22 cases against the wrongdoers during 2008-2009. Besides, forty seven criminal cases are pending in the Criminal Courts of Bangladesh.

b) No civil suit is yet disposed of decisively. At present three civil suits are pending in the Civil Courts of Bangladesh.

c) LL Division is planning to realize all outstanding dues to BTRC as public demands by giving appointment of a Certificate Officer under Section 26 of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, 2001.

In the Higher Judiciary

Legal and Licensing Division handles various kinds of cases filed against the Commission. The aggrieved persons generally seek relief under the writ jurisdiction of the Hon'ble High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh by filing writ of mandamus and writ of certiorari. Relief is also sought by filing criminal revisions against the orders for framing of charge by the Sessions Courts. To contest the cases, the LL Division collects the comments/opinions from the concerned departments, prepares affidavit-in-opposition for filing it to the concerned Bench, and conduct the hearings through the appointed law chamber(s) when the case is ready for rule hearing or for order. The preliminary tasks such as preparing letter of authorization for swearing the affidavit, power (vakalatnama), notice and collection of all documents to be annexed with the concerned affidavit-in-opposition are also performed by the LL Division. In the year 2008-2009 the 12 (twelve) cases in the High Court Division are disposed of. Out of those cases rule is discharged in nine writ petitions, rule partially discharged and partially absolute in one writ petition, rule is absolute in one criminal revision and one writ petition is rejected at motion hearing. At present fifty two cases are pending in the High Court Division of the Supreme Court. However, no case was filed in the High Court Division against BTRC during the period of 2008-2009.