The Supreme Court (SC) of India has asked both Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) to share all the details regarding segmented offers with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Two years back, in 2018, the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had favoured telcos by allowing them not to disclose the details of their segmented offers with Trai. As per an ET Telecom report, hearing the appeal of Trai, the SC has over-ruled the order by the telecom tribunal and asked the telcos to share all the tariff details with the regulator. More details on the story ahead.
Telcos to Share Tariff Details With Trai as per SC
As per an order from the Supreme Court of India, Vi and Bharti Airtel will have to disclose the details about every ‘specific’ or ‘segmented’ offer they make to the users. Both the telcos have argued until now that sharing the details would violate the commercial confidentiality of the offers. This would help the competitors of the telco approach their customers with similar offers.
However, in a decision given on Friday, the SC has allowed Trai to track information regarding every specific or segmented offer the telcos are offering. At the same time, the SC has also directed Trai to keep all the details received from the telcos confidential so that their competitors can’t gain knowledge to it.
When TDSAT had earlier ruled in favour of the telcos, the operators continued to offer users customised discounts for retaining them and on top of it, they didn’t need to disclose any detail about the offers made. But now it isn’t the case anymore, both Bharti Airtel and Vi will have to comply with the order given by SC. This would increase the transparency of the offers made.
General Solicitor Tushar Mehta representing Trai had earlier said that telcos shouldn’t create a special class for customers and make anti-competitive and discriminatory offers. He had argued that the specific or segmented offers made by the telcos fall under the Tariffs category only and should be under the purview of Trai.
