New Delhi: Supreme Court has declined an interim stay on the Delhi High Court order upholding Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) decision to compensate consumers for call drops. The apex court has posted the hearing of the case for March 10 asking Centre, TRAI to respond to appeal of the telecom companies.
The high court had, earlier this week, upheld the October 16, 2016 decision of TRAI making it mandatory for cellular operators to pay consumers one rupee per call drop experienced on their networks, subject to a cap of Rs 3 a day. The court order came while dismissing a batch of petitions filed by Cellular Operators Association of India, a body of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and 21 telecom operators, including Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Reliance.
The high court had said that it had not stayed TRAI's notification since filing of the writ petition, therefore the telecom regulator is at liberty to implement its decision January 1, 2016 onwards. The court had said that the regulation was made by TRAI "keeping in mind the paramount interest of the consumer".
The telecom operators had moved the high court seeking quashing of TRAI's regulation contending that it was a "knee-jerk reaction" which penalised them without proving any wrong-doing.
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