A division bench comprising Justices S P Kurdukar and R P Sethi issued the notices after hearing brief arguments advanced by senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam on behalf of petitioner Matrix Paging (I) Private Limited.The question of law raised by the petitioner was "whether the definition of `service provider' as per Section 2 (J) of the TRAI Act includes government as a constitutional entity and licensor or is it limited to only that of department of the government which renders the service".

A division bench of the High Court had, on October 12, upheld the ruling of its single judge bench and said: "The licensing authority, that is, the Central Government while exercising the power to grant license under Section 4 ofthe Indian Telecom Act is not bound to seek the recommendation of TRAI."The High Court had said, "Licensing powers of the government are statutory powers which cannot be allowed to be impliedly interfered or subjugated to another authority."

The High Court had also said that it was unable to read anything in the relevant provisions of the TRAI Act which could permit the authority to give directions in discharge of functions under Section 11 (1) of the act to the Government in its role as a licensor.

The power of granting licence had been given to th egovernment under a statute and "it is the government which alone could enjoy this power," the court held.

Rejecting arguments of the appellants that Government as service provider had to abide by the direction of TRAI, the court said, "There is clear distinction between Government as service provider and the licensor."It said "The entire scheme of the act is such that this was never intended to be so. Rather, it is the Government which is empowered to givedirection to TRAI under the act," the court said.