In a setback in the midst of battle in the group, Reliance Infocomm has been slapped a penalty of Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.50 billion) by the Telecom Department on the charge of routing incoming international calls as local ones leading to evasion of payment of levy to two public sector telecom companies.

"We have passed the order imposing the penalty of Rs 150 crore," Telecom Commission Chairman Nripendra Misra said, adding that the private operator has been asked to make the payment immediately.

Misra said that the order has been delivered to Reliance Infocomm.

The decision to impose penalty has been taken after two notices were issued to the company seeking an explanation as to why the penalty should not be imposed on them.

Earlier this month the company had opposed the move to impose penalty asserting it has not violated the licence conditions and thus imposition of any penalty by Department of Telecom would be totally 'unjustified and untenable.'

"There has been no violation of any of the licence conditions," the company had said in reply to DoT on the show cause notice served on it for allegedly routing international calls as local ones.

"DoT has failed to provide a properly reasoned order. The show cause notice issued to us is altogether lacking in material particulars," Reliance had said.