Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to examine whether the decision to impose penalty on telecom firms ought to be reviewed in wake of the regulator’s own technical papers on call drops issued a month after the regulations were framed.
“It appears that nobody has seen technical papers on the day of (framing of) the regulation (on call drops). Please take into account the technical paper and tell us in affidavit whether you (Trai) will consider amending the regulations…or you want to stand by it. Whatever you have to say, tell us with reasons,” a bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and Rohinton F Nariman said.
Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha, appearing for Trai, however said that technical papers are released periodically by the regulator on various subjects and that the regulations are independent of such papers.
But the bench retorted: “You cannot shy away from the fact that exactly one month after the regulation on call drops, you have come out with the technical papers in which you admit that call drops will happen and the reasons can’t be attributed to telecom companies alone.”
[related-post]
It also asked Trai to explain why the technical papers on the issue was released a month after the regulations came into being. Trai’s technical paper had said that call drops in networks are not only due to the service providers and there could be several other reasons for it.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for cellular operators association, said the firms are willing to sit with Trai to chalk out a roadmap to address the problems of call drops.
“They (Trai) did not consider our response at the stage of consultation paper and came out with a zero tolerance on call drops. Now, exactly one month after they come out with technical papers in which they admit what we have been saying that call drops are beyond the control of service providers,” Sibal added.
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 have challenged the Delhi High Court order upholding Trai’s decision making it mandatory for them to compensate subscribers for call drops from January 1, 2016.
During the hearing, Sibal also apprised the court that an affidavit giving details of penalty imposed on service providers for call drops has been filed and there was only one instance of the penalty. “There is only one instance of penalty imposed by Trai…but there were several instances where show cause notices were issued to service providers but the response was accepted by the regulator and no penalty was imposed,” he said.
