The Telecom Bill 2023 has not specifically barred modification of the terms and conditions of a licence, registration, authorisation or assignment with retrospective effect — a promise that the Modi government had made in the draft telecom bill of 2022.

“The terms and conditions ... shall not be modified with retrospective effect to the detriment of a licensee, registered entity or assignee,” clause 4 (2) of the draft bill of 2022 had promised.

These terms and conditions were linked to the grant of licence, registration, authorisation or assignment and included those relating to the payment of entry fees, licence fees, registration fees or any other fees or charges by whatever name called.

There is no explicit mention of this in the Bill that telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

The risk of a retrospective amendment of the terms and conditions will, therefore, linger on as a concern for legacy telecom companies that emerged just over two years ago from a long and bruising legal battle with the government over unpaid telecom dues.An explanatory note that accompanied the draft bill of 2022 said the explicit assurance that the government would not modify terms and conditions with retrospective effect would “remove any uncertainty in the minds of existing stakeholders”.

Retrospective amendments to change laws flared into a controversy in 2012 when then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee changed a tax law with a 50-year retrospective effect that made it obligatory for Vodafone Plc to pay a $ 2 billion tax demand linked to its $ 12 billion buyout of Hutchison Whampoa’s 67.5 per cent stake in 2007. The retrospective amendment had effectively nullified a Supreme Court verdict that said Vodafone didn’t have to pay the tax.

The Modi government had initially claimed that it would never change laws retrospectively – an assurance that late finance minister Arun Jaitley gave in his budget speech in 2014.

The other big change is the amendment in the definition of what constitutes a telecom service. The 2002 draft said it meant services of any description “including broadcasting services, electronic mail, voice mail, voice, video and data communication services, audiotex services, videotex services, fixed and mobile services, internet and broadband services, satellite based communication services, internet based communication services, in-flight and maritime connectivity services, over-the-top (OTT) communication services which is made available to users by telecommunication”.

The latest Bill errs on the side of brevity: “telecommunication service” means any service for telecommunication, it said, leaving everyone to speculate over the sweep of this legislation.