Dhaka: The Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) reopened the spectrum of private telecom operator Citycell on Sunday evening following a Supreme Court directive.

BTRC chairman Shahjahan Mahmood told UNB that a BTRC team went to the Citycell office and reinstated the service at about 6:54pm.

Earlier in the day, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) asked the BTRC to reply within noon why it has not yet resumed the spectrum of the telecom operator.

On Thursday, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court asked Citycell to pay Tk 100 crore to the BTRC by November 19 and directed the BTRC to resume its spectrum immediately.

On October 20, the BTRC suspended the spectrum of Citycell as it failed to clear the outstanding payment of Tk 477.63 crore.

The Appellate Division ordered Citycell to pay its Tk 477.51 crore dues to the BTRC in two installments to continue its operation on August 29.

The apex court had asked the mobile phone operator to pay the first slot of Tk 318.42 crore, two-thirds of the total outstanding payment, within October 19.

As Citycell failed to pay the two-thirds of the total amount within the stipulated time, the BTRC took the decision to suspend the operations of the mobile phone operator as per the law.