Since the time Jio has been introduced in the market, there have been lots of controversies, especially with the extension of Jio’s free-offer till 31st of March. On 4th of September, Jio had launched the free voice and data plan, which was supposed to end on 31st of December, but was extended till the 31st of March 2017 as part of “Happy New Year scheme”. This is against TRAI’s set period of 90 days for promo offers.
On 23rd of December, Airtel had challenged TRAI for allowing Jio to continue the promotional offer beyond 3 months and after it, it is Idea Cellular, which has come up with the same issue.
Yes, now, Idea Cellular has approached TDSAT, the telecom dispute tribunal and has challenged TRAI for allowing Jio to continue the free offers beyond the stipulated period.
Idea has filed a petition with TDSAT to consider Jio’s promotional offer as INVALID; sources say that both the petitions filed by Bharti Airtel and Idea will be listed and heard on the 1st of February. Last week, Airtel filed an additional affidavit terming TRAI as “Mute spectators” and holding the authority responsible for killing the business of other telecom companies, by allowing Jio to extend the offer.
Other telecom operators were pissed off with TRAI and sought explanation as to how did it allow Reliance Jio to continue the plan beyond 3 months. On 20th of October, TRAI had announced that the promo offer of Jio was valid only for 90 days i.e. till 3rd of December.
In the petition filed by Idea, TRAI’s 20th October order was highlighted; even TRAI’s failure to take action after 3rd of December was pointed out.
Speaking about this matter, the Chairman of TRAI, R.S Sharma stated
“Everybody in this country is free to move to court. The Constitution provided them this right. We are looking into the matter of Jio’s promotional services and the presentations / arguments made by other operators on Jio’s plans. We will decide the issue very soon.”
An official of TRAI says that this matter is now being discussed with Mukul Rohatgi, its Attorney General. He says “AG’s opinion is just an internal process of Trai and so, we have referred the matter to him for his opinion on questions raised by operators.”
Let’s see what TDSAT decides. What do you think? Will the promotional offer of Jio stopped? Do share your views in our comments section below!
