By Chirag Juneja and Shubhankar Gupta.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has sought powers to extend its ambit for penalizing service providers who fail to follow its regulations. The demand follows the Supreme Court’s decision in May this year to strike down the penal rule framed by TRAI for imposing penalty on telecom service providers for call drops. The apex court had called the directive “unconstitutional and arbitrary”.
In their arguments put forward to the Supreme Court, the telecom service providers contended that they had been strictly complying with all the guidelines laid down by TRAI. However, the regulator was still penalizing them.
TRAI functions in accordance with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. As per Section 29 of the Act, “if a person violates directions of the Authority, such person shall be punishable with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in case of second or subsequent offence with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees and in the case of continuing contravention with additional fine which may extend to two lakh rupees for every day during which the default continues.”
To maintain a tighter grip on telecom operators, especially in the light of the adverse Supreme Court verdict on call drops, TRAI recently suggested amendments to the TRAI Act, 1997 in a letter to the Department of Telecommunication (DoT).
According to sources, the regulator has sought amendments in Section 29 of the TRAI Act. It wanted to include “penalty” as well as a “jail term” for offenders.
TRAI’s letter to the Department of Telecommunications, says: “Section 29 may be substituted with… If a person violates direction of the authority, such personnel shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to two years and shall be liable to fine which may be extended to Rs 15 lakh.”
While TRAI may have sought more powers in the interests of the consumers, its demand seems to be a violation of the general principles of law—more specifically the doctrine of Separation of Powers (see box below).
TRAI has been delegated legislative functions under the TRAI Act, 1997, but its recent demand to increase the ambit of power is quintessentially a function of the judiciary.
In case, TRAI is empowered with both legislative and judicial functions, it will be in direct violation of Article 50 of the constitution, which enshrines separation of powers. Moreover, corruption and abuse of powers may become evident in TRAI in such a scenario.
To take the argument further, there is no guarantee that stricter norms will result in benefits for the consumers in general. On the other hand, incentivizing operators to provide better services will bear fruitful results. As it is, TRAI has scant regard for the interests of the telecom service providers. It needs to have a balanced approach towards serving the needs of the operators as well as consumers.
As of now, it seems that all concerned parties likely to be affected in case TRAI’s demand is approved are crying foul. The Telecom Ministry, service providers and the judiciary have taken objection to empower TRAI with elaborate punitive powers.
In fact, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently said in the Rajya Sabha: “TRAI is empowered by TRAI Act to lay down the standards of quality of service to be provided by the service providers and ensure the quality of service by conducting periodical survey of such services. Since TRAI has wide-ranging powers, the need to change TRAI Act is not felt at this juncture.”
