New Delhi: In a major relief to telecom companies, the Supreme Court today struck down a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) notification obligating telecom service providers to compensate consumers for dropped calls.
An apex court bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman struck down the December 16, 2015 notification as it set aside a Delhi High Court judgement upholding the TRAI notification.
“We have held the impugned regulation to be ultra vires, arbitrary, unreasonable and non-transparent,” the bench observed.
The top court’s order came on a clutch of petitions by telecom operators challenging sector regulator TRAI’s last year’s notification asking them to compensate consumers Rs 1 for each call drop, subject to a maximum of three disrupted calls in a day.
The service providers, during the hearing, had contended that TRAI decision was a "populist" measure to accommodate consumers as call drops were happening for host of external considerations not attributable to them.
However, TRAI had defended its decision to impose the call drop penalty, describing it as a "least invasive way to deal with the issue" and told the apex court that the service providers must enhance their investment in infrastructure as they were earning huge revenues.
With IANS Inputs
