The main legal point established in the judgment is that TRAI's consultation process and disclosure of information to stakeholders, including Vodafone, were in compliance with the transparency requirement under Section 11(4) of the TRAI Act. The court emphasized that any further intrusion by the court in the regulation-making process would impinge on TRAI's essential function.

S. RAVINDRA BHAT, J.

Facts

1. Vodafone India Limited ("Vodafone" or "appellant") appeals the decision of a learned Single Judge of this court, dated 04.09.2017 dismissing its Writ Petition (Civil) No. 6388/ 2017 preferred against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ("TRAI" or "respondent").

2. Vodafone is a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and a telecom service provider holding Telecom Licenses/Unified Access Service Licenses since 1994-95 to establish, maintain and operate telecommunication services in various service areas in India. The facts are that TRAI issued a Consultation Paper on Review of Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) dated 05.08.2016, proposing to fix, inter alia, Mobile Termination Charges (MTC), inviting comments /inputs on, inter alia, the appropriate approach for prescribing domestic termination charge (viz. mobile termination charge and fixed termination charge) for maximization of consumer welfare (i.e. adequate choice, affordable tariff and good quality of service), adoption of more efficient technologies and overall growth of the telecommunication services sector in the country.

3. In the Consultation Paper, TRAI provided a brief description of various components of IUC, the framework of IUC in India, the need for the review of IUC etc. TRAI, in the paper, also mooted the question as to whether keeping in view the overall growth of the telecommunication sector in the country, the cost oriented approach or the Bill and Keep (BAK) approach was the most suitable for fixing MTC. The TRAI also asked for comments on the appropriate method for estimating mobile termination cost, i.e. LRIC+, LRIC, pure LRIC or any other method.

4. On 12.10.2016, Vodafone wrote to TRAI, seeking cost data of all operators as in its opinion that was done on similar previous occasions and also requested TRAI to share the cost model with all the operators. It was stated in the said letter that that in the 2015 exercise, the TRAI had initiated the data collection exercise on 30.04.2014 and had issued the consultation paper on 19.11.2014, whereas in the present exercise, no such cost data was sought from the service providers, and instead a consultation paper was directly issued. In its letter, Vodafone urged TRAI to seek the cost data of all operators as was done in the previous exercises and further requested TRAI to share the cost model transparently with all the operators.

5. By its letter dated 15.12.2016, TRAI asked for the data for the present consultation exercise, requiring the access Service Providers/Vodafone to provide information regarding Subscribers, Traffic and Coverage, Network Design, Capital Costs and Operating Costs. Vodafone, in response, by letter dated 23.12.2016 while commenting on the cost data sought by TRAI highlighted that it was necessary to understand the TRAI’s proposed and existing costing models and therefore requested TRAI to provide the IUC costing models, in excel sheets along with all assumptions so that the it could furnish its comments on the various components of the costing models. TRAI, in response, by its letter of 29.12.2016 stated that the information was sought for computation of mobile termination charge with the help of various methods and that a brief description of which was given in the consultation paper dated 05.08.2016 and that the costing method used in the previous review exercise conducted in 2014-15 was explained in the Telecommunications Interconnection Usage Charges (11th Amendment) Regulation 2015.

6. After this, a series of letters were exchanged between Vodafone and TRAI, with the former repeatedly requesting for costing models of IUC in order to enable them to provide comments on the consultation paper and the TRAI reiterating that the model for IUC computations have already been indicated in the consultation paper. On 28.03.2017, TRAI issued an Order under section 12 (1) of the TRAI ACT, 1997 calling upon Vodafone to furnish the information soug