TRAI Guidelines On Registration Of Commercial Communication Impractical And Arbitrary: Plea In Delhi HC

Today, the Petitioner informed the Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan that the said guidelines have laid down procedures which are arbitrary and are impractical to implement.

The Petitioner argued that the said Regulations do not distinguish between Unsolicited Commercial Calls (UCCs) and Transactional Information Messages (TIMs) sent by banks, airlines, etc to inform the customers about bookings, transactions and OTPs.

'80% of the SMSs that are sent to people are in the form of TIMs. Only 20% of such messages constitute the UCCs', the Petitioner.

The Petitioner is also aggrieved by the requirement of uploading the consent of each and every user on the 'Distributed Ledger Technology' (DLT) platforms of the telecoms as a condition precedent to sharing their data with telecom operators.

'It is highly impractical to expect banks and airlines to take individual consent of millions of users. This condition is impractical and onerous', the Petitioner argued.

Another grievance raised by the Petitioner is regarding the requirement of sharing 'content templates' of commercial communications with TRAI for prior approval.

It is argued by the Petitioner that principal entities providing specialised services can't be expected to provide prior templates of customer specific information.

Moreover, the Petitioner argued, it will expose sensitive personal data of the customers to telecom operators which clearly violates their Right to Privacy.

TRAI opposed the said by arguing that the Petitioner, who is an intermediary, has no locus to argue on behalf of principal entities such as banks and that too without making them a party to this case.

'Petitioners didn't even participate in the consultation process', TRAI submitted.

It was further argued by TRAI that principal entities are rather asking for stringent implementation of the said guidelines in order to curb phishing and online frauds.

At this stage, the Petitioner sought more time to move an amendment application before the court. The same was granted.