Here's the story that tells why I was forced to file my first RTI in my life! And also tells the lesson (taught to me) that if you are seeking any information from babu's, you must take help from experts of RTI/law.

Thanks to the numerous promotional calls coming to my mobile phone, I searched for the information on how I can get rid of this menace. Then I reached at TRAI's website that tells if an NDNC (national do not call) registered subscriber gets any unsolicited commercial call (UCC), the called-subscriber can claim a compensation from the service provider, up to Rs 5000. Any subsequent UCC will attract compensation worth (up to) Rs 20000. For details, please refer to this link: TRAI and its NDNC regulations.

When I asked my provider (Airtel) for the above mentioned compensation, they silently declined to me requests. Then I decided to discover, whether I was eligible for any compensation at all! .

To me, at first instance, it looked like the TRAI's clause (as given at the above link) was crystal clear. When looked closely, the word "up to" was making something fishy. I decided to seek more information from TRAI via RTI route. Consequently, I filed my first ever RTI application.

I got a quick response. To my extreme surprise, TRAI (in its RTI-reply) said there's no such provision for compensation!!! The information published at their website and the reply-to-RTI was quite contradictory, in my opinion. They must have understood the issue from my RTI-application but still they gave a very brief response that didn't explain the meaning of their own regulations.

I am still unclear why TRAI has two made such complex and ambiguous rules that are not understandable by common people. Why can't TRAI be as responsible, strict and customer-friendly as IRDA, SEBI, RBI are!


You can see my RTI-Application below:



Response from TRAI is given below: