The Madras High Court has restrained the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from taking coercive action, including penal proceedings, against Vodafone Mobile Services pursuant to the notification of the Telecommunication Tariff (sixty-third amendment) Order of 2018. Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose passed the interim order on a writ petition filed by Vodafone Mobile Services to declare the Tariff Order, notified on February 16, as unconstitutional, illegal, null and void since it was in violation of the provisions of the TRAI Act, 1997.
During the course of arguments, Senior Counsel P.S. Raman, representing the petitioner firm, pointed out that the Tariff Order casts an obligation on mobile service providers to report to TRAI any new tariff for telecommunication services or any change therein within seven working days.
‘Intense competition’
It also states that the tariff should be reported for information and record of the Authority after conducting a self check to ensure that the tariff, including promotional tariff, was consistent with the regulatory principles which include transparency, nondiscrimination and nonpredation. Wondering how service providers could be forced to disclose their tariff structures when there was intense competition between mobile telephone service providers, the counsel said the penal provisions under the order were so severe that they could force the companies to shell out thousands of crores as penalty.
