Bombay court dismisses RJio’s complaint on losses due to Airtel’s claim to being the fastest

A suit against the country’s largest telecom services provider Bharti Airtel’s claim of being the ‘fastest mobile network in India’ has been dismissed by the Metropolitan Magistrate, Esplanade (Mumbai).

The latest entrant to the industry Reliance Jio (RJio) had moved the court against Airtel and global broadband test agency Ookla, saying Airtel’s claims of being fastest network through various mediums, have caused wrongful losses to the company.

RJio had filed the case asking for ‘issuance of process under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for offences punishable under Sections 406, 420, 465, 120B, 499 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 66 of the Information Technology Act’.

However, the trial court has recently (July 27) ruled that the ‘complaint is devoid of merits and is hence dismissed’.

“In the recent era of technology, each and every service provider or any other business run by the respective companies are in competition and for marketing their respective products or services, claim themselves to be the best by way of advertisement of any mode in order to expand their own business. Its nothing but a marketing policy,” the order seen by BusinessLine said.

On authenticity of the certificate issued by Ookla, it is held that Ookla is an independent agency, and in case any flaws in the test methodology exist, that itself is not enough to presume that the certificate is apparently dishonest or procured and collusive, the court observed.

“Thus during this voyage of technology era, if any service provider has chosen to adopt test methodology of its services by an independent agency wherein the said independent agency as authenticated by its certificate then there could not have been any dissatisfaction or wrongful losses to the other competitors including complainant,” the court order said.

When asked Airtel, a company spokesperson confirmed about the judgment and said, “We are grateful to the honourable court for dismissing the frivolous allegations made against us. Bharti Airtel takes great pride in maintaining the highest standards of ethics and compliance.” Comments sought from Mukesh Ambani-owned RJio were not available immediately.

This was one of the cases between RJio and Airtel, and there have been such instances or allegations that the telecom players are making against each other, since the launch of RJio in September last year.

And, to check on such claims, the sector regulator TRAI plans to ‘study’ the methodology and other nuances of such applications used for checking upload and download speeds of data.

TRAI said it would call major speed test apps for a presentation to ‘understand’ their methodology and it plans to meet seven-eight mobile internet speed testing firms, including Ookla, over the next few months.

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