Call drops: The apex court said that TRAI recommendation making it mandatory for telecos to compensate subscribers for call drop is arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent.
Telecom companies got relief on Wednesday after Supreme Court (SC) quashed a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) order on compensating consumers for call drops. The apex court said that TRAI recommendation making it mandatory for telecos to compensate subscribers for call drop is arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent.
“We have held the impugned regulation to be ultra vires, arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent,” a bench comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman said.
The apex court passed the judgement on the appeals filed by COAI, a body of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and 21 telecom operators, including Vodafone,
Bharti Airtel and Reliance, challenging the Delhi High Court order which had upheld the TRAI’s decision making it mandatory for them to compensate subscribers for call drops from this January.
Telecom companies last week had told the SC that entire sector is under huge debt and they have to pay big price for spectrum, therefore zero tolerance on call drops should not be imposed on them.
TRAI refuted the allegations and said that the telecom service providers are making huge gains in the sector. “They (TRAI) said that we have been making Rs 250 crore a day but what was not specified was that we are under huge debt. We have to pay over Rs 3.8 lakh crores as debt. We are buying spectrum at Rs 45,000 crore, which was earlier Rs 1,658 crore.
The Delhi High Court had early this year upheld the October 16, 2015 decision of TRAI, making it mandatory for cellular operators to pay consumers one rupee per call drop experienced on their networks, subject to a cap of Rs 3 a day.
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