Delhi HC refuses stay on pesky message rule implementation

Delhi High Court has refused to stay the implementation of unsolicited commercial communication messages.

Noida-based tele marketing firm Shivtel Communications had filed a writ petition seeking a stay on scrubbing of commercial text messages by telecom companies.

The court took cognizance of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s latest instructions to telecom companies and declined to stay the implementation. The matter will now be heard on May 11.

The regulations require companies to register templates of their commercial text messages and the process was put on hold for a week till Tuesday following customer complaints. Scrubbing refers to the verification process followed by telecom companies for sending commercial text messages to the customers.

On Tuesday, the telecom regulator has allowed telecom companies to resume scrubbing of messages and record details in case of anomalies such as mismatch of content id, template etc. However, messages will not be blocked and telecom companies are allowed to deliver them to recipients. Details of all such anomalies will be shared twice weekly with the TRAI, which will review the scrubbing process on March 23.

“The court took the view that TRAI is seized of the issue and is taking steps to iron out glitches. The TRAI has also been asked to submit a status report on the issue,” said a person aware of the issue.

In its plea Shivtel Communications said scrubbing of text messages by telecom companies should be suspended till such a time that it is independently tested and its feasibility certified.

It has also demanded the 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 service delivery levels and implementation of regulations last week led to failed delivery of around 40-50 per cent of messages, the company said in its petition.

Advocate Manik Dogra appeared for the petitioner Shivtel Communications and Arjun Natarajan and Gopal Jain appeared for respondents TRAI and Tanla Communications respectively.