The Department of Telecom is believed to have served a notice on Etisalat DB for closing down its operations which is against the terms and conditions of licence.

As a result of this, the company can attract a penalty of Rs 50 crore from DoT, apart from liquidating charges.

According to a Supreme Court order, the operators whose licences were cancelled on Feb 2 can continue operations till September 7, but Etisalat’s network stopped working from January 19.

Though Etisalat closed down its operations due to cancellation of its licence by the apex court, its performance bank guarantee is still with the government. 

One of the reasons that the company has given for closing down is operations is that its Indian partner in the telecom joint-venture, Majestic Infracon has not cooperated.

Reliance Infratel switched off Etisalat DB's network from midnight of January 19. The company had entered in to infrastructure sharing agreement Reliance Infratel. 

According to DoT, EDB was required to inform it 60 calendar days in advance before surrendering its licence but the company informed DoT on February 28 that it does not have any intention to invest any further in continuing with its operations.