Telecoms plea against TRAI compensation policy rejected

TRAI
Delhi High Court has rejected telecom operators demand to reverse the order of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) making it mandatory for them to compensate mobile subscribers for call drops.

India has more than 900 million mobile customers. Top telecoms are Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, BSNL, etc.

A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath ordered that telecom operators would have to compensate subscribers for first three call drops.

Telecom operators aims for a stay on TRAI’s compensation policy, announced on October 16, 2015, for call drops. As per the TRAI policy, telecoms need to credit one rupee to the mobile users’ account for every call drop (restricted to three per day) starting January 1, 2016.

The TRAI had said the policy was made after consumers began getting regular call drops. In first quarter of 2015, about 25,787 crore outgoing call were made, out of which in 200 crore cases of call drops were encountered by consumers.

This is 0.77 percent of all calls made, the TRAI had told the court, adding that service provider made about Rs 36,781 crore during the period.

IANS