The Delhi high court on Monday dealt a blow to the country's mobile operators by upholding the dropped call compensation scheme.
Introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in October, the controversial new regulation requires mobile operators to pay customers 1 rupee per call dropped, up to a maximum of INR3 per day.
The rule does not apply to the receiving network, only the originating network, which has four hours to notify an affected customer. Prepaid customers will have their account credited; contract customers will have the compensation added to their next bill.
The TRAI argued the new rules will drive improvements in quality of service; however, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) petitioned the high court to block them. The lobby group argued that the compensation scheme is arbitrary, punishing operators for problems that are often beyond their control, such as a lack of available locations for new cell sites.
The COAI also argued that the rules amounted to intervention into mobile tariffs, which is beyond the TRAI's jurisdiction in this instance.
The pleas did not pass muster with the court though, which concluded that the COAI had failed to prove the rules are beyond the TRAI's scope, and that they are manifestly arbitrary.
The rules are in the "paramount interest of the consumers," the court said. "We accordingly uphold the validity of the impugned regulations."
As a result, the dropped call compensation scheme was ruled as effective since the TRAI's original implementation date, which was 1 January 2016.