The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a plea of two cellular operator associations challenging a Delhi High Court order upholding TRAI’s decision making it mandatory for them to compensate subscribers for call drops from January 1, 2016.

The plea of the associations was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice T. S. Thakur seeking urgent hearing on the matter.

The bench also comprising Justice U. U. Lalit asked the associations “Why don’t you correct the system?”

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the telecom associations, said the matter required urgent hearing as the Delhi High Court has upheld the TRAI order, after which the bench agreed to hear the plea tomorrow.

The High Court had, earlier this week, upheld the October 16, 2016, decision of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) making it mandatory for cellular operators to pay consumers one rupee per call drop experienced on their networks, subject to a cap of Rs 3 a day

The court order came while dismissing a batch of petitions filed by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India, a body of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and 21 telecom operators, including Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Reliance.

The High Court had said it had not stayed TRAI’s notification since filing of the writ petition, therefore the telecom regulator was at liberty to implement its decision from January 1, 2016, onwards.

The court had said the regulation was made by TRAI “keeping in mind the paramount interest of the consumer”.

The telecom operators had moved the High Court seeking quashing of TRAI’s regulation contending that it was a “knee-jerk reaction” which penalised them without proving any wrong-doing.

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