In Brief
The Supreme Court struck down the Telecom Consumers Protection (Ninth Amendment) Regulations, 2015, which required cellular operators to credit consumers one rupee for each call drop (up to three per day). The Court held the regulation ultra vires the TRAI Act and violative of Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution. The regulation was manifestly arbitrary because: it imposed strict no-fault liability on service providers who complied with the separately prescribed 2% call-drop benchmark; it penalized operators for call drops attributable to consumer fault (36.9% per TRAI's own data) or factors beyond their control; and it provided no rational basis for the compensation amount, daily limit, or why only callers—not recipients—were compensated. The Court rejected the argument that the regulation could be read down to apply only when operators were at fault, finding the regulation's language unambiguous and noting that a statute's unconstitutionality cannot be cured by discretionary administration."
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