Rcom on Friday moved Telecom tribunal TDSAT alleging that government’s July 3 circular allowing a CDMA player to bid for only one slot of 1.25 MHz of spectrum, as against GSM players who can bid for two such lots, is discriminatory.

“This approach of respondent No 1 (Government of India) is discriminatory and leads to non-level playing field among the similarly placed UAS licensees,” said RCom in its plea. “This move was creating a non-level playing field”, Rcom said.

RCom said that it was not against the auction but the guidelines issued by the DoT for auction should be revised to allow a level-playing field between the existing GSM and CDMA operators. It has requested TDSAT to declare clause related to block allocations as “arbitrary and discriminatory in nature and quash them.

It said that as per the DoT’s circular of 3 July this year, the government would allot two blocks of 1.25 Mhz to existing GSM operators in the proposed auction, while the CDMA can bid for one only.

A TDSAT bench headed by its chairman Justice S B Sinha, issued notice to DoT after finding that no one had appeared from the government’s side.

 “While the existing GSM operators can get additional 2.5 Mhz spectrum through auction and go even beyond the licence mandated quantity of 6.2 Mhz in some of the circles,” said RCom in its petition.

Earlier Vodafone had moved the tribunal against DoT's rules outlined for the auction slated scheduled to take place by August 31, as per the Supreme Court's order.

Vodafone challenged  DoT's decision to give away technology-neutral spectrum through auction and that mobile phone companies must pay this market determined price to convert existing airwaves they hold into liberalized spectrum for 20 years.

The telco had sought that these conditions outlined by the DoT in the initial auction guidelines be dropped before August 31, the last date before which airwaves must be auctioned as per the Supreme Court's order.