New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Union Government to cancel the licences of all telemarketing firms which have failed to get themselves registered with the Telecom Ministry, pledging not to make any unsolicited call to prospective customers.
A Bench of Justice A K Mathur and Justice Dalveer Bhandari directed the Government to begin cancelling licences of telemarketing firms which have not registered themselves with the Department of Telecommunication's 'Do-Not-Call' mechanism within the stipulated three months of the apex court's March order to do so.
The DoT's Do-Not-Call registry was devised at the court's direction to deter telemarketing firms from making unsolicited calls to prospective customers.
The Bench also asked the Government to cancel the licences of those telemarketing firms as well which have been found calling up individuals who have specifically registered themselves with the Do-Not-Call registry of their telecom service providers seeking to avoid unsolicited calls.
The Bench wanted the Government to file its report on the action taken by it on the court's order within six weeks.
The Bench gave these directions while hearing a public interest lawsuit by Delhi resident Harsh Mehta, seeking a curb on the malady of telemarketing firms calling up one and all at odd hours without any discretion to sell various products or services of their clients.
During the hearing of the matter, the petitioner mooted the idea of replacing the present mechanism of having Do-Not-Call registry with a Do-Call registry.
He said that all the telephone subscribers should be presumed to be not interested in receiving any unsolicited calls and only those people who register themselves with a Do-Call-Me register of their telecom service provider should be getting any unsolicited calls.
The Bench also asked the Government to responds to this idea within six weeks.
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