New Delhi, Apr 21: In a issue having wide-ranging ramifications, the Supreme Court today admitted a petition filed by BSNL challenging the legality of levy of local sales tax on the telecom service provider totalling to Rs 576 crore per annum which would be in addition to the service tax of Rs 1122 crores paid by it to the Union government. A bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P V Reddi, after hearing arguments from petitioner's counsel Harish Salve, issued notices to the Union government, all the states and union territory governments and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the plea that proceedings by states for recovery of the sales tax should be stayed. The past recovery of the sales tax by the states would amount to Rs 2560 crores, BSNL said and pointed out that it would be a serious blow to the efforts by the telecom service providers to increase the teledensity in India from the existing three telephones per 100 people to 15 per hundred people by the end of year 2010 with an investment of over Rs two lakh crores in the next seven years. BSNL said that it has been providing telecom services to the people and was charging them on that count alone and there was no transfer of goods to the consumers warranting imposition of sales tax as was erroneously being done by the states. Bureau Report