New Delhi: In a major relief for telecom companies, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) policy which made it mandatory for them to compensate consumers for call drops. The apex court observed that the TRAI recommendation to impose penalty on telcos 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 RF 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.
TRAI had made it mandatory for cellular operators to pay consumers Rs 1 per call drop experienced on their networks, subject to a cap of Rs 3 a day.
The telecom operators had moved court seeking quashing of TRAI's regulation contending that it was a "knee-jerk reaction" which penalised them without proving any wrong-doing.
The telcos had termed the regulation as "arbitrary and whimsical" and contended that providing compensation to the consumers amounted to interfering with the companies' tariff structure and this could be done only by an order and not a regulation.
The telecom companies had earlier told the SC that the 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.
Refuting the allegations of TRAI that the telecom service providers are making huge gains in the sector, the firms had said they have been investing hugely on the infrastructure.
The regulatory body had told the court that it has to safeguard 100 crore telecom subscribers and if companies agree to compensate call drops with equal number of free calls to consumers without pre-conditions then it is open to re- consider its direction imposing penalty on them.
It had also told the court that a "cartel" of 4-5 telecom firms having a billion subscribers are making Rs 250 crore a day but not making investments on their network to improve services to check call drops.
The counsel for telecom operators had refuted the allegations of TRAI that telecom companies are not investing on technology and towers and had said that in past 15 months over two lakh towers have been installed.
Comments
0 comment