Three major telecom players — Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Loop Mobiles and their top officials were today summoned by a Delhi court for allegedly rejecting number portability requests from their subscribers in violation of TRAI regulations.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had moved the court after the companies failed to reply satisfactorily to its show cause notices for the alleged violation of norms that permitted subscribers to switch over from one service provider to another without change of their mobile phone numbers.
The top corporate executives who were issued summons with a direction to appear before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav on May 25, 2012 are Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor, its director (legal and regulatory affairs) Jyoti Pawar and vice-president (head and regulatory affairs, mobile services) Ashwani Rana.
The executives summoned from the Idea Cellular included its managing director Himanshu Kapania and its chief corporate affairs officer Rajat K. Mukarji.
Loop Mobile managing director Sandip Basu and chief regulatory officer Harish Kapoor were also summoned.
“In my considered opinion, there is enough material on record to proceed against the accused persons for violation of the TRAI regulation. Let accused persons be summoned,” the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate said.
TRAI has filed separate complaints against each telecom firm and their top officials for allegedly violating its norms by rejecting number portability requests of their subscribers in various circles like Mumbai, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and others.
TRAI counsel Saket Singh argued that the three companies had violated TRAI Telecommunications Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009, while rejecting porting requests from their subscribers.
Mr. Singh said the companies also failed to provide complete information sought by TRAI in respect of the porting requests rejected by them.
