Telcos cannot be penalised for call drops, rules SC; quashes TRAI notification [Read Judgment]

The Supreme Court today provided massive relief to the telecom service providers by quashing Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2015, of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India which made it mandatory for mobile network companies to compensate subscribers for call drops. Cellular Operators Association of India, a body of Unified Telecom Service Providers and 21 telecom operators, including Vodafone, Airtel and Reliance had moved the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court verdict upholding TRAI notification. They have stupendous growth but they are making minimum investment on their network to improve the quality of service on their network to curb call drops”, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi representing the TRAI had said. Inferior quality of your mobile could be another reason,” senior lawyer Kapil Sibal representing the COAI had told the bench Sibal said as per a survey nearly 67 per cent of call drops were due to signal failure, for which the network provider was not responsible, but it is attributable to a combination of factors like several tall buildings between your phone and the tower, jammers in high security areas and premises occupied by VVIPs, restrictions in border areas and a busy network.