While Tata, Essar Commvision and Hughes Ispat have filed their cases in the Delhi high court, Reliance-Nynex has moved the Ahmedabad high court. The Gujarat and Maharashtra cellular licencee Birla AT&T has moved the Delhi high court seeking to stay the demand for 20 per cent licence fee payment and encashment of post-dated cheques and bank guarantee.

Birla AT&T is the only cellular telecom firm to have deposited post-dated cheques amounting to Rs 313 crore and has pleaded before the court to stay the encashment of these post-dated cheques, a Birla AT&T spokesperson said.

The petitions were heard by Justice M K Sharma, who posted the Tata, Essar andHughes Ispat petitions, filed under section 9 of Arbitration & Conciliation Act 1996 for further hearing on Wednesday.

The companies have also sought an interim order from the Court restraining DoT from taking any other action against the petitioners, till the matter was adjudicated by an arbitrator as per the provisions of the agreement between licensee and licensor.

The petitioners have written letters to Communications minister Jagmohan requesting that the DoT should not take any action till Wednesday as the court did not pass any interim order today. Sources said that the need for this arose because the Courts did not pass any interim order today.

Meanwhile, Fascell the cellular licencee for Gujarat was turned away on Monday after it approached the DoT with only a part of its outstanding licence fee dues. DoT sources said that the refusal was due to the fact that the company had not covered the entire 20 per cent amount of Rs 57.60 in its cheque. "We have now asked the Fascell representative to comewith the full 20 per cent amount on Wednesday", they added.

Sources said that notwithstanding the DoT orders for securitising the remaining 80 per cent through bank guarantee, Jagmohan had adopted a softer attitude on this condition. This follows the Prime Ministers advice to him for "doing his best considering the present situation".

On his part, the minister who continued the series of personal interactions with telecom company executives on Monday, is reported to have told a company, "your case is a geniune one and you should go to the Court".

According to a release, Birla AT&T has contested the DoT's right to demand the 20 per cent fee, as it is of the view that DoT hgad already caused losses to the tune of Rs 1,944 crore on account of delays due to breach of several contractusl obligations. The company has already brought these contractual breeches directly to the attention of the DoT and several other government departments.

Earlier, communications minister Jagmohan had directed all privatetelecom operators to pay 20 per cent of their licence fee by February 15 but, the date was extended to February 28 following a directive from the Prime minister's office (PMO).