RJio threatens to sue COAI over 'defamation'

Reliance Jio has threatened to pursue defamation proceedings against the Cellular Operators Association of India over the latter's allegations that the telecom regulator's recent regulations favoured one operator (RJio).

The new player, a part of the Mukesh Ambani group, has sent a notice to COAI demanding a public apology and clarification in 48 hours, RJio said in a statement on Friday.

On Tuesday, COAI had lashed out at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India saying its latest tariff order revision strengthened the ambitions of one particular operator with "deep pockets and monopolistic designs". Though COAI had refrained from naming RJio directly, it said that majority of its members agreed with the assessment of Trai's regulations except one which had a divergent view on the matter.

RJio said Trai's latest tariff order in no manner has taken away tariff flexibility from operators as being misrepresented by COAI and the overarching principle of forbearance has been retained by TRAI. "Under the garb of discounted / customized tariffs, IDOs have been offerings such tariffs on one-to-one manner in a clearly discriminatory manner with complete lack of transparency – this clearly constitutes anti-competitive activity and is against the consumer interests," it said.

The bone of contention here is the regulation issued by Trai last week which said there was no need to place restrictions on the number of promotional offers from telecom firms as long as they were transparent, non-predatory and non-discriminatory and there was no need to restrict the time period of promotional offers from the current 90 days.

Coming down harshly on COAI, RJio said it was appalling to see the association which had once emerged as the official voice of the Indian Telecom Industry, is now reduced to becoming an instrument and mouthpiece of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea. "COAI has betrayed its key objectives and responsibilities by trying to scuttle any regulatory development aimed towards greater fair market access for new entrants and greater transparency and lowered costs for the consumers."

The tariff order mandates operators to present their tariffs transparently to both Trai and consumers and will curb the current malpractice continuing to be adopted by incumbent operators in complete violation of license conditions, tariff regulations and various directions of Trai. COAI is championing the cause of willful and blatant violation of license conditions and extant regulations by the incumbent operators, it said.

The war of words between the new player RJio and incumbents has been going on since the entry of the former in the telecom sector. RJio's entry has shaken the telecom industry as the severity of the competition has increased manifold putting a stress on the financials of the industry.

RJIO CLAIMS

• RJio said Trai’s tariff order in no manner has taken away tariff flexibility from operators as being misrepresented by COAI.
   
• The overarching principle of forbearance has been retained by the TRAI, it said.