Page 1

JUDGMENT

1

REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

WRIT

PETITION

(CIVIL)

NO.

285

OF

2010

Avishek Goenka

… Petitioner

Versus

Union of India & Anr.

… Respondents

J U D G M

E N T

Swatanter

Kumar,

J .

1.

The petitioner is a businessman engaged in the business

of distribution of pre-paid virtual and tangible calling value for

mobile phone subscribers and also sells new customer

acquisition packs and follows it up, by collection of customer

application forms and executing tele-calling, to verify customer

credentials. In this Public Interest Litigation, the petitioner

has attempted to highlight the grave issue of non-observance

of norms/regulations/guidelines related to proper and effective

subscriber verification by various service providers. In fact,

according to the petitioner, there is rampant flouting of

norms/regulations/guidelines relating to this subject matter

and there is no proper verification of the subscribers prior to

Page 2

JUDGMENT

2

selling of the pre-paid mobile connections to them.

2.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (for short,

“TRAI”) is the regulatory body for the telecommunications

sector in India and the Union of India has responsibility to

issue guidelines and frame regulations and conditions of

licence, in consultation with the TRAI, to ensure coordination,

standardization and compliance with the regulations, as well

as protecting the security interests of the country.

3.

It is the averment of the petitioner that the telecom sector

has

witnessed

the

most

fundamental

structural

and

institutional reforms since 1991. This sector has grown

significantly in the last few years. As per the Annual Report

for 2009-2010 of the Department of Telecommunication,

Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India (for

short “DoT”), as on 31^st December, 2009, the Indian telecom

sector had about 5622.11 million connections.

The tele-

density per hundred population, which is an important

indicator of telecom penetration in the country, has increased

from 2.32 per cent in March, 1999 to 47.88 per cent in

December, 2009. The Eleventh Five Year Plan for 2007-2012

had provided a target of 600 million connections, but the

industry has already provided around 700 million connections,

thus far exceeding the target. Different random studies in

Page 3

JUDGMENT

3

relation to pre-paid Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards

show widespread violation of guidelines for Know Your

Customer (KYC) and even other common guidelines. The SIM

cards are provided without any proper verification, which

causes serious security threat as well as encourages

malpractices in the telecom sector. It appears that 65 per cent

of all pre-paid SIM cards issued in Jammu & Kashmir and 39

per cent of all pre-paid SIM cards in Mumbai, may have been

issued without verification; which means that 1 out of every 6

pre-paid SIM cards is issued without proper verification. The

averment is that such unverified SIM cards are also used in

terrorist attacks.

4.

This Court, in the case of State (NCT of Delhi) Vs. Navjot

Sandhu alias Afsan Guru [(2005) 11 SCC 600] had, with some

caution, referred to a large number of calls which had been

made by terrorists from instruments containing unverified SIM

cards. It is further averred by the petitioner that around 80

per cent of the pre-paid SIM cards may be purchased in pre-

activated form which is in violation of the notifications issued

by the DoT, dated 22.11.2006 and 23.3.2009 respectively,

banning the sale of pre-activated SIM cards. Another

significant fact that has been brought out in this petition is

that, pre-paid SIM cards, which are the most commonly issued

Page 4

JUDGMENT

4

without verification, constitute 96 per cent of the total SIM

cards sold. This indicates the seriousness of the problem as

well as the