Vodafone, on Friday withdrew from the Delhi High Court its plea alleging the Centre is indulging in "arm-twisting" and "coercive" tactics by refusing to sign its unified licence (UL) till the telecom major unconditionally accepts the "restrictive" clauses in the licence. The petition was withdrawn after a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul agreed with the Centre that as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act there was an alternative remedy available before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), Reports PTI.

"Writ petition is dismissed as withdrawn," the court said and gave liberty to Vodafone to approach TDSAT. During the brief arguments, Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for Department of Telecommunications (DoT), said that as per TRAI Act, Vodafone is a licensee and thus should have moved TDSAT.

As per the plea, the company completed the conditions of acceptance for the 20-year licence to operate in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata and spent nearly 17,000 cr. in the auctions and issued letters of intent to the DoT in September. However the unified licence was not given to Vodafone.

Vodafone has already won airwaves in an auction in February this year to get a fresh licence to continue operations.

The telecom major has accused DoT of "adopting coercive steps" saying "if UL is not signed in a timely manner, then the existing 22 million subscribers in three service areas - Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata - of the petitioners, being provided services under existing unified access service licence (UASL), will face disruption of services after November 29, 2014".

Vodafone's UASL for these service areas is set to expire on November 29.