HC upholds Trai order to compensate consumers for call drops

The regulation was to come into effect from Jan 1, 2016

The Delhi High Court on Monday upheld telecom regulator’s Trai decision asking operators to mandatory compensate mobile users with rupee one for every call drop, maximum to three calls per day.

The regulation was to come into effect from January 1, 2016 but telecom operators had approached the High Court against the Trai’s order.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath dismissed a batch of petitions filed by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), a body of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and 21 telecom operators, including Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Reliance.

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"We uphold the validity of (Trai's) regulation," it said.

The court said that it has not stayed the notification of Trai since filing of the writ petition, therefore the telecom regulator is at liberty to implement its decision January 1, 2016 onwards."There is no dispute about the power of Trai to make regulation under section 36 of the Act. The impugned regulation has been made in exercise of the power conferred under the Act, keeping in mind the paramount interest of the consumer," the bench observed.

"It is also relevant to note that the regulations do not penalise every call drop but is limited only to three call drops a day per consumer," it said.

COAI, Director General, Rajan Mathews said: “We are disappointed with the order, we will have to see the details of the order to take a call on filing an appeal (in the Supreme Court) . We have to begin to  pay for call drop."

In October last year, Trai issued amendment in Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations mandating this compensation. Mobile users will be given Rupee one compensation for each call dropped, with a compensation cap of Rs 3 per day but no coercive step was taken by the regulator as the matter was pending in the Court.

Trai had told the high court that consumers have a right to get compensated for call drops and this was different from the quality of service guidelines that cellular service providers have to follow under the licence conditions.However, telecom companies had argued that even if consumers were facing problems, a regulation without statutory backing cannot be created.