Noida firm moves Delhi HC, seeks stay on Trai rules on scrubbing messages

A Noida-based company has moved the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on how a telecom regulator plans to check unsolicited text messages. The court will hear the matter on Wednesday.

Regulations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) require companies to register templates of their commercial text messages. The process was put on hold for a week following customer complaints. Shivtel Communications, a telemarketing firm, asked the court to suspend the scrubbing of text messages by telecom companies till the time Trai's regulations are independently tested.

Scrubbing refers to the verification process followed by telecom companies for sending commercial text messages to the customers.

This is the second writ petition against Trai for the way it plans checking unsolicited text messages. The norms aim to protect customers from fraud and phishing.

The petitioner has also demanded setting up of an independent monitoring committee comprising all stakeholders to ensure that the next phase of the regulation is implemented only after it is tested so as not to cause service and economic disruption.

Commercial communication services need an uptime of more than 99.9 per cent to ensure optimum delivery and implementation of Trai regulations last week led to failed delivery of around 40-50 per cent of messages, the company said in its petition.