Supreme Court for cancellation of licences of unregisterd telemarketers
01 Aug 2008
The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the cancellation of licences of all telemarketing firms who have not registered themselves with the telecom ministry.
This order comes after complaints that consumers who had registerd with ''the do not call registry" continued to receive unsolicited calls.
A Supreme Court division bench comprising Justices A K Mathur and Dalveer Bhandari came down heavily saying that some telemarketing companies who had been making the calls despite their registration with the registry were violating privacy, a fundamental right of every citizen.
Since the do not call registry has failed miserably it was better to have a 'call registry' instead, which means, those who wish to receive calls can register themselves on the call register, they noted.
The court noted, "persons interested in commercial calls must volunteer and get registered. Those who do not wish to register should not be disturbed."
Telemarketing companies would then be in a position to call only subscribers who have registered themselves in ''call registry''. With this system in place then any calls made to subscribers other than those listed under the ''call registry'' will be illegal.
The bench directed the government that each telemarketing company be given a distinct number so any unsolicited calls generated from these companies will be easily identifiable.
The apex court had given all telemarketing companies three months time to register themselves with the Department of Telecommunication's on the 'Do-Not-Call' scheme. The court has now ordered to terminate the licences of those companies who had not registered and even of those who continued to call consumers inspite of having registered themselves with the 'do-not-call register'.
Additional solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam was given six weeks to implement this order and report to the court on the status of it.
An irte subscriber Harsh Pathak had hauled mobile companies to court by filing a PIL that accuses them of selling their client data base to the telemarketing companies, who in turn made unsolicited calls.
As a result of the PIL the court has threatened to pass an order if the government did not implement the ''do not call'' registry rigorously.
